Windows 11 won’t protect you from every threat. Here’s how to stay safe

Back when Microsoft announced Windows 11, it proclaimed the new operating system to be the most secure version of Windows yet. The company’s requirements certainly imply that Windows 11 outdoes its predecessor, given the need for a trusted platform module (TPM) 2.0 and Secure Boot in order to achieve full compatibility – as well as a guarantee of future security updates.

But Microsoft touting Windows 11 as more secure is having an unintended effect. Some people now believe they don’t need to do anything beyond meeting those hardware and security requirements. And that’s not true. TPM and Secure Boot only protect against two types of threats. A TPM stores information related to encryption or authentication (like Windows Hello biometric data). To keep it safe, it monitors your hardware configuration – if it notices a change,