Just one month ago, June 2026 Patch Tuesday broke Microsoft’s previous record with 206 CVEs and three zero‑days. July now triples that count, reinforcing that the era of “small” Patch Tuesdays may be over as AI‑driven vulnerability discovery ramps up.
The update includes 59 critical vulnerabilities, as well as three publicly disclosed zero-days. Microsoft classifies these as zero-days because information about the vulnerabilities became public before patches were available. Two are known to be actively exploited by attackers.
These updates fix security problems and keep your Windows PC protected. Here’s how to make sure you’re up to date:
1. Open Settings
2. Go to Windows Update
3. Check for updates
4. Download and install
5. Double-check you’re up to date
Let’s look at the three zero-days.
First is a Windows BitLocker security feature bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-50661. It is not known to be actively exploited. Microsoft describes it as:
“Protection mechanism failure in Windows BitLocker allows an unauthorized attacker to bypass a security feature with a physical attack.”
In other words, even if you’ve encrypted your machine with BitLocker, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to access your data if they have physical access to your computer.
Next is the actively exploited CVE-2026-56155, an Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerability. ADFS is a Microsoft software component that provides single sign-on (SSO) and federated access. It acts as a trust broker between an organization’s Active Directory and applications. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain administrator privileges. Reportedly, Microsoft discovered the vulnerability while investigating active attacks.
Last but not least is CVE-2026-56164, a Microsoft SharePoint Server elevation of privilege vulnerability. SharePoint Server is the on-premises version of Microsoft’s web-based collaboration and document management platform. A missing authentication check in Microsoft Office SharePoint could allow an attacker to elevate privileges over a network.
Both actively exploited vulnerabilities have been added to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, which sets patch deadlines for Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies. CISA has also urged organizations using SharePoint Server to implement hardening measures after the latest exploitations.
According to CNET. Read their review →
Microsoft Corp. today released software updates to plug at least 570 security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software, almost triple the number of vulnerabilities the software giant fixed in its record-smashing Patch Tuesday release last month. Microsoft attributed the burgeoning patch counts to vulnerability discoveries aided by artificial intelligence.
Nearly 60 of the bugs quashed in July’s Patch Tuesday earned a “critical” severity rating, meaning miscreants or malware could use them to seize remote control over a Windows device with little or no help from the user. Microsoft also addressed three zero-day flaws, including two that are already being exploited in the wild.
Two of the zero-day weaknesses allow an attacker to elevate their user rights on a Windows system, as do approximately 250 other elevation of privilege flaws fixed this month; they include CVE-2026-56155 — an Active Directory Federation Services bug — and CVE-2026-56164, a Microsoft Sharepoint vulnerability.
CVE-2026-50661 is a security feature bypass in Windows BitLocker that could allow attackers to gain access to encrypted data if they have physical access to the device. Microsoft said this bug has been detailed publicly, but that it is not aware of any active exploitation.
In a blog post on July 9, Microsoft Executive Vice President Pavan Davuluri wrote that Windows users will notice “a higher volume of security updates included in each security release” as a result of AI aiding in the discovery of vulnerabilities.
“The pace of vulnerability discovery is changing with advances in AI making it possible to find more issues, faster, across more code, with new mechanisms that can accelerate both discovery and analysis,” Davuluri wrote.
Jack Bicer, director of vulnerability research at Action1, called attention to CVE-2026-48561, a remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Copilot (with a 9.6 CVSS threat score) that allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over the network. Microsoft says an attacker could exploit this bug by hosting a malicious website that causes Microsoft Edge for Android to automatically send crafted prompts to Copilot when a user visits the site.
As AI advances the state of vulnerability discovery and remediation, it is also making it easier for attackers to quickly devise working exploits for known software flaws. Microsoft has long labeled security bugs using its “exploitability index,” which is Redmond’s best guess as to how likely it is that attackers will be able to figure out a reliable way to exploit a given vulnerability.
But Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable, argues that Microsoft’s exploitability index needs to do a better job of shifting with the machine speed of discovery. For example, Microsoft originally gave this month’s SharePoint zero-day an exploitability rating of “less likely,” although the flaw was added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list on July 1.
“Anthropic’s Red Team’s own findings for known vulnerabilities (n-days) revealed how fragile this system has become, with its Mythos Preview model being able to produce proof-of-concept exploits for 13 of 14 vulnerabilities that were rated ‘Exploitation Less Likely’ or ‘Exploitation Unlikely,'” Narang said. “What this means is that our way of looking at Patch Tuesday has changed, because the exploitability index is centered around humans, not AI tools, and as these tools continue to improve, defense needs to improve alongside it.”
Chris Goettl at Ivanti observed that the record patch numbers from Microsoft come as a number of other major software makers are increasing their patch cadence, including Adobe which announced today it is moving to twice-monthly security bulletins published on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month (Adobe also cited AI for accelerating their patch cycles). Cisco, Mozilla and Oracle also are shipping updates more frequently, while Google’s patch batches in June 2026 totaled more than 900 security fixes, Goettl noted.
Backing up your Windows system and/or data is always a good idea before applying operating system updates. Given the volume of patches addressed this month it may be wise for end users to wait a few days before applying these fixes. It’s not uncommon for security patches to introduce system stability issues, and those chances probably increase quite a bit with the gigantic patch count released today.
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