Surviving the June 2026 Patch Tsunami: Prioritizing Amidst 200 CVEs
Just saw the drop on Krebs. 200 CVEs is a new high watermark for Microsoft. We’re looking at roughly 36 Critical ratings, but the real kicker is the public exploit code floating around for at least three of them.
I’m treating this as an out-of-band emergency for the public ones. Usually, when we see 'publicly available' alongside 'Critical' on a Patch Tuesday, it refers to vulnerabilities requiring no user interaction—likely Remote Code Execution (RCE) in core services like the Print Spooler or remote procedure calls. We are prioritizing the 'Exploitability Assessment' of 'Exploitation More Likely'.
I’ve deployed a PowerShell script to force a reporting of pending updates to our SIEM to identify stragglers:
$Session = New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session
$Searcher = $Session.CreateUpdateSearcher()
$Criteria = "IsInstalled=0 and Type='Software'"
$SearchResult = $Searcher.Search($Criteria)
$Updates = $SearchResult.Updates
foreach ($Update in $Updates) {
Write-Output "Pending: $($Update.Title)"
}
On the detection side, we are beefing up our EDR rules. If one of these is indeed a wormable SMB or RDP flaw, we need to catch lateral movement immediately. Here is a quick KQL query I'm using to hunt for suspicious child processes spawned by system services that shouldn't be spawning shells:
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(1d)
| where InitiatingProcessFileName in~ ("services.exe", "svchost.exe", "spoolsv.exe")
| where FileName in~ ("cmd.exe", "powershell.exe", "powershell_ise.exe")
| project DeviceName, InitiatingProcessFileName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine
How are you guys prioritizing this load? Are you patching the public exploits immediately and deferring the rest, or going for the full reboot cycle?
Thanks for the KQL query. I’m adding a filter for 'InitiatingProcessParentFileName' to exclude legitimate admin tools that might trigger false positives on our jump servers.
We are seeing a lot of noise on port 445 from external IPs since the release. It seems the bots are already mass-scanning for the public exploit, even if the vendors haven't fully disclosed the details.
I ran your PowerShell check and noticed a few servers stuck in a 'Pending Reboot' state from last month, which blocked the new June updates from installing via WSUS.
For those stuck, try this to clear the pending state flags before trying again:
Delete-Item "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\RebootRequired" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
It saved me a few remote handshakes.
That volume is insane. To help prioritize patching before the reboot cycle gets messy, check your exposure. If Print Spooler is the suspected RCE vector, this helps identify active instances across your domain so you can triage Tier 0 assets first:
Get-ADComputer -Filter {OperatingSystem -like "*Server*"} | ForEach-Object {
if (Get-Service -Name Spooler -ComputerName $_.Name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where-Object Status -eq 'Running') {
$_.Name
}
}
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