Microsoft Unloads Nearly 1,000 Patches Across Windows, Office, and Azure Platforms

Microsoft has released patches for nearly 1,000 vulnerabilities across its Windows, Office, and Azure platforms. This massive batch of fixes is one of the largest the company has ever issued, with 723 vulnerabilities patched on Windows alone. The company also addressed two critical vulnerabilities in Windows that were being actively exploited to grant malicious actors local privileges and allow code execution without restrictions.

The patches include fixes for Office and Office 2016, as well as SQL Server. Microsoft is working on expanding its memory integrity protection feature across global Windows 11 installations, which uses Virtualization-based Security (VBS) to create isolated virtual environments and protect the kernel from sophisticated attacks.

This robust protection mechanism allows for more security hotpatches to be installed without requiring a hard restart, making it ideal for critical environments. The company will continue to stress-test Windows kernel security, with this large wave of patches being a step in the right direction.