Microsoft Corp. today issued updates to plug at least 974 security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software, by far its biggest single patch batch ever. Microsoft says artificial intelligence is helping to speed the discovery of vulnerabilities, but security experts warn that many organizations already are struggling to prioritize the more human-intensive endeavor of testing and deploying so many fixes each month.

This month’s patch bundle obliterates the software giant’s previous record set in July, when it released updates for at least 570 security vulnerabilities. September’s Patch Tuesday brings this year’s total to more than 2,600, more than twice Microsoft’s previous record-setting patch year in 2020 (1,245) and with three more months to go.

There are two “zero-day” flaws fixed this month that are being actively exploited: both CVE-2026-81963 and CVE-2026-85880 allow an attacker to elevate their privileges on Windows system.

Fully 113 of the bugs addressed today earned Microsoft’s “critical” rating, meaning they could be abused by malware or miscreants to seize control over a vulnerable Windows machine with little or no help from the user.

Among the more serious critical flaws this month is CVE-2026-69730, a DNS weakness present in Windows Server 2012 onward and on Windows 10. Microsoft warns that an unauthenticated attacker could leverage this weakness simply by sending a specially crafted packet to an affected system, and that it is likely to be exploited.

Also scary is CVE-2026-69829, a critical, remote code execution flaw in the Windows Shell. This vulnerability has a CVSS base score of 9.8 (10 is the most severe), and can be exploited with low attack complexity, no privileges, and no user interaction.

Microsoft is hardly alone in shipping monster patch bundles lately. Many other large software companies, including Adobe, Cisco, Google, Mozilla and Oracle, all have recently credited AI-assisted research with increasing their patch cadence and volume (Google said today it is now going to ship security updates every two weeks).

Tyler Reguly, associate director of security research and development at Fortra, said one core challenge with deploying Windows updates is that they need to be tested before being installed across an organization because not all third-party software works seamlessly in the face of changes to the underlying operating system.

“It’s time to put our CISOs and CSOs on notice,” Reguly said. “How are you helping your teams through these difficult times? Do you have your teams deploy after hours and on weekends to avoid disruption to the business environment? Do you reward them for that effort? Time to dig into your budget and buy dinner for your teams that are working on Saturday to get patches rolled out before users return to work on Monday.”

Satnam Narang is senior staff research engineer at Tenable. Narang said it’s important to recognize that while the number of vulnerabilities being patched by Microsoft is rising, the number of flaws that can and will affect most organizations remains quite low.

“AI-assisted vulnerability discovery in 2026 is creating larger haystacks, but it isn’t finding more needles,” he said. “It’s critical that organizations understand which vulnerabilities actually apply to them, whether they pose a threat by being reachable and exploitable, and prioritize remediation based on this risk context.”

Of course, regular Windows users don’t need to test patches before deploying them, but they still need to open Windows Update periodically or else assent to the program’s nag notices about pending updates. And at the rate these Windows patch releases are ballooning in size, it’s probably best not to let them pile up month after month.

Enterprise Windows admins will want to keep an eye on askwoody.com for news of any updates that appear to be causing problems. As always, the SANS Internet Storm Center has a per-patch breakdown ordered by severity and urgency.

The ransomware-as-a-service group Medusa has adopted fresh tactics to gain access and added hundreds of victims in a little more than a year, according to an updated U.S. government advisory published Tuesday.

The gang is relying on access brokers,compensating them anywhere from $100 to $1 million, with higher prices going to those who work exclusively with Medusa. However, most of the brokers work simultaneously for “multiple variants at the same time,” the advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI and Health and Human Services Department states in one of the updated portions of the advisory.

Tuesday’s update advisory expands upon aMarch 2025 advisory, drawing on ongoing FBI investigations.nIt includes information on the kinds of software vulnerabilities Medusa has exploited, such as Fortra GoAnywhere and BeyondTrust flaws.

“Medusa actors operate opportunistically by targeting victims with unpatched software rather than focusing on specific organizations or sectors; however, the Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) Sector has been a frequent victim of Medusa operations,” according to the advisory. “Medusa actors leverage newly announced exploits within 24 hours and have been observed to use exploits up to a week before public vulnerability disclosure.’

“However, there is no indication Medusa actors develop their own zero-day or N-day vulnerabilities, preferring instead to obtain advanced access to exploits from unknown sources or to quickly leverage newly announced exploits before potential victims can mitigate vulnerabilities through patching,” the advisory continues.

The approach appears to be netting gains: From March 2025 to April of this year, the victim tally in the advisory jumped from more than 300 to more than 500. The group was first identified in 2021.

“Medusa actors often use legitimate tools and living off the land techniques to evade detection. They may also leverage remote monitoring and management software and remote access services, including Remote Desktop Protocol, for lateral movement,” as updated sections of the advisory detail. “Once inside a network, they use common utilities and tools to support credential access, data exfiltration, and ransomware deployment.”

Earlier this year, Microsoft detailed how a group it dubbed Storm-1175 was making use of Medusa ransomware in speedy operations. Symantec and Carbon Black also detailed earlier this year how North Korean hackers were leaning on Medusa to target the health care sector.

The post Medusa ransomware tallies hundreds of new victims, says updated advisory on group’s tactics appeared first on CyberScoop.