Microsoft Rolls Out Major Security Update, Strikes AI Partnership With Pearson And More

Microsoft is firing on all cylinders!

In the last couple of days, the company has revealed major updates about its products and ambitions.

These have come in the form of two major updates to the world’s most used operating system, Windows, and two key partnerships that leverage Microsoft’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Windows Updates

Microsoft rolled out a series of updates as part of its January 2025 Patch Tuesday.

This included patches for a variety of functions, including usage, display, settings, hardware connectivity, and more.

However, the most notable among these are the patches made towards security fixes.

Across its Windows 11 KB5050009 and KB5050021 cumulative updates for versions 24H2 and 23H2, which are mandatory cumulative updates, Microsoft patched at least 161 flaws.

This consists of eight zero-day vulnerabilities, including three that have been actively exploited in attacks (CVE-2025-21333, CVE-2025-21334, CVE-2025-21335), and five publicly exposed zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-21275, CVE-2025-21308, CVE-2025-21186, CVE-2025-21366, CVE-2025-21395).

Here, zero-day vulnerabilities are described as flaws that are publicly disclosed or actively exploited, with no fix in place.

As per reports, it fixes 12 "Critical" vulnerabilities, 40 Elevation of Privilege vulnerabilities, 14 Security Feature Bypass vulnerabilities, 58 Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities, 24 Information Disclosure vulnerabilities, 20 Denial of Service vulnerabilities, and 5 Spoofing vulnerabilities.

The update is being described as the largest number of CVEs (which stands for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) addressed in a single month since at least 2017.

Ahead of this, the fixes included fixes for:

Display errors for second screens after the device goes to sleep, including lag and screen tearing.
Smaller circles on some devices when the control key is pressed to locate the mouse cursor.
Clipboard history showing no content.
Spacing between listed items in the left pane, search box getting cut off in Explorer. This also came with a new feature that allows content sharing to Android devices from the context menu and on the desktop.
Other new features included the addition of a new section for touchscreen edge gestures, new features on the Dynamic Lighting Settings page, and others in Speech, Narrator, Jump list items, etc.

Source

Partnerships

On the same day, Microsoft announced a multiyear partnership with Pearson, the world’s leading lifelong learning company.

The partnership comes with the aim of addressing “one of the top challenges facing organizations globally: skilling for the era of AI.”

Through the partnership, the two will provide employers, workers, and learners with new AI-powered products and services to prepare them for an AI-driven economy, by combining Pearson’s expertise in learning and assessment with Microsoft’s AI technology and infrastructure.

Their collaboration will include:

Developing personalized learning at scale by leveraging Pearson’s content assessment, upskilling, and certification services.
Launching an innovative and strategic collaboration to build AI proficiency and technical skills among the masses through new AI credentials, certifications, copilots, agents, and AI tools. It will also help boost go-to-market opportunities.
Microsoft will also extend its current partnership with Pearson VUE through 2029 to continue offering Microsoft Cloud and Office certifications.
Pearson will deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot to its global workforce after having piloted and tested it, as it looks to “enhance efficiency, creativity, and productivity and drive better operational performance.”

Pearson’s CEO Omar Abbosh, said, “Partnering with Microsoft means we can reach more learners than ever before. By blending Microsoft’s AI leadership and Pearson’s trusted enterprise skilling and learning services, we can bring enterprise learners precisely what they need to forge ahead in their careers and help them realize the life they imagine.”

Judson Althoff, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft, said, “We are thrilled to partner with Pearson to help global enterprises develop learning experiences that empower employees with the AI skills needed to help advance their careers and achieve more.”

Ahead of this, Microsoft also revealed a collaboration with Mayo Clinic to build foundational AI models that will help transform how radiologists do their work, using multimodal AI to help them analyze X-rays faster and more accurately.

According to Dr. Matthew Callstrom, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of Mayo Clinic Radiology, “Multimodal foundation models hold immense promise in tackling significant roadblocks across the radiology ecosystem. The innovations we’re creating with Microsoft Research will help unlock valuable insights for the future of medical imaging to improve how radiologists work and how patients are cared for.”

It’s certainly been a good start to 2025 for Microsoft.

What do you think about Microsoft’s Windows updates? Do you think they should be done more often? What do you make of Microsoft’s new partnership?

Let us know in the comments below!

First published on Wed, Jan 15, 2025

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