March 2026 Patch Tuesday: Eight Critical Vulnerabilities and Two Publicly Disclosed Among 82 CVEs Patched

BLOG Featured Recent Video Category Start Free Trial March 2026 Patch Tuesday: Eight Critical Vulnerabilities and Two Publicly Disclosed Among 82 CVEs Patched March 10, 2026 | Falcon Exposure Management Team | Exposure Management Microsoft has addressed 82 vulnerabilities in its March 2026 security update release. These include two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities and eight Critical vulnerabilities. March 2026 Risk Analysis This month's leading risk types by exploitation technique are elevation of privilege with 46 patches (56%), remote code execution (RCE) with 16 patches (20%), and information disclosure with 10 patches (12%). Figure 1. Breakdown of March 2026 Patch Tuesday exploitation techniques Microsoft Windows received the most patches this month with 48, followed by Azure with 13. Figure 2. Breakdown of product families affected by March 2026 Patch Tuesday Critical Vulnerability in Microsoft Devices Pricing Program CVE-2026-21536 is a Critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting Microsoft Devices Pricing Program and has a CVSS score of 9.8. This vulnerability enables unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by exploiting an unrestricted file upload weakness (CWE-434) in the Microsoft Devices Pricing Program, which fails to properly validate uploaded file types. The vulnerability requires no user interaction and has low attack complexity. Microsoft has proactively remediated this vulnerability within the cloud infrastructure without requiring any customer intervention. Microsoft Devices Pricing Program users are automatically protected with no patches or configuration changes necessary. Table 1. Critical vulnerability in Microsoft Devices Pricing Program Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Critical 9.8 CVE-2026-21536 Microsoft Devices Pricing Program Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical Vulnerability in Payment Orchestrator Service CVE-2026-26125 is a Critical elevation of privilege vulnerability affecting the Payment Orchestrator Service and has a CVSS score of 8.6. This vulnerability allows remote attackers with no privileges to gain elevated access through missing authentication for a critical function in the Payment Orchestrator Service. The vulnerability requires no user interaction and has low attack complexity with a changed scope that impacts confidentiality. Microsoft has proactively remediated this vulnerability within the cloud infrastructure without requiring any customer intervention. This CVE is published for transparency as part of Microsoft's commitment to disclosing cloud service vulnerabilities. Payment Orchestrator Service users are automatically protected with no patches or configuration changes necessary. Table 2. Critical vulnerability in Payment Orchestrator Service Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Critical 8.6 CVE-2026-26125 Payment Orchestrator Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office CVE-2026-26110 and CVE-2026-26113 are Critical remote code execution vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, both with CVSS scores of 8.4. These vulnerabilities allow unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code by exploiting untrusted pointer dereference and type confusion flaws in Microsoft Office components. Exploitation requires no user interaction and can be triggered by sending specially crafted malicious files to the target user, with the preview pane serving as an attack vector for both vulnerabilities. In the most severe attack scenario, an attacker could send a specially crafted file that executes malicious code on the victim's machine simply through the preview pane, without requiring the victim to open the file. Table 3. Critical vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Critical 8.4 CVE-2026-26110 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical 8.4 CVE-2026-26113 Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Critical Vulnerability in Microsoft Excel CVE-2026-26144 is a Critical information disclosure vulnerability affecting Microsoft Excel and has a CVSS score of 7.5. A cross-site scripting flaw in Microsoft Office Excel could allow remote attackers with no privileges to disclose sensitive information over a network through improper neutralization of input during web page generation. The vulnerability requires no user interaction and has low attack complexity. Successful exploitation could potentially cause Copilot Agent mode to exfiltrate data via unintended network egress, enabling a zero-click information disclosure attack with high confidentiality impact.  The Preview Pane is not an attack vector for this vulnerability. While no exploit code has been observed, Microsoft assesses exploitation as unlikely. An official fix is available for customers to deploy. Table 4. Critical vulnerability in Microsoft Excel Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Critical 7.5 CVE-2026-26144 Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability Three Critical Vulnerabilities in Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers CVE-2026-23651 and CVE-2026-26124 are Critical elevation of privilege vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers, and both have a CVSS score of 6.7. There is no evidence of exploitation in the wild. A permissive regular expression flaw (CVE-2026-23651) and a path traversal flaw (CVE-2026-26124) in Azure Compute Gallery could both allow local attackers with high privileges to elevate their privileges within the affected ACI container's context. These vulnerabilities require no user interaction and have low attack complexity. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could enable attackers to escape access boundaries and perform actions beyond their authorized privilege level. Microsoft assesses that exploitation is less likely and reports it has already fully mitigated these issues. CVE-2026-26122 is a Critical information disclosure vulnerability affecting Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers and has a CVSS score of 6.5. There is no evidence of exploitation in the wild. An insecure default initialization of a resource flaw in Azure Compute Gallery could allow remote attackers with low privileges to disclose sensitive information over a network. This vulnerability requires no user interaction and has low attack complexity, with potential for high confidentiality impact. In confidential container scenarios, successful exploitation could enable attackers to access information that should be protected within the environment. No public exploit code exists, and Microsoft assesses exploitation as less likely. Microsoft reports it has fully mitigated this vulnerability server-side within the Azure Confidential ACI service. Table 5. Critical vulnerabilities in Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Critical 6.7 CVE-2026-23651 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 6.7 CVE-2026-26124 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Critical 6.5 CVE-2026-26122 Microsoft ACI Confidential Containers Information Disclosure Vulnerability Publicly Disclosed Vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server CVE-2026-21262 is an Important privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Microsoft SQL Server and has a CVSS score of 8.8. This vulnerability allows remote attackers with low privileges to gain SQL sysadmin privileges through an improper access control flaw. The vulnerability requires no user interaction and has low attack complexity. An attacker would need to log in to a vulnerable system before performing the privilege escalation. This vulnerability was publicly disclosed, though there is no evidence of exploitation. An official fix is available for customers to deploy. Table 6. Important vulnerability in SQL Server Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Important 8.8 CVE-2026-21262 SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability A Publicly Disclosed Vulnerability in Microsoft .NET CVE-2026-26127 is an Important denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability affecting Microsoft .NET and has a CVSS score of 7.5. This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to exploit an out-of-bounds read flaw to cause a DoS condition on affected systems. While this vulnerability had been publicly disclosed, there is no evidence of exploitation, and Microsoft assesses that exploitation is unlikely. An official fix is available for customers to deploy. Table 7. Important vulnerability in Microsoft .NET Severity CVSS Score CVE Description Important 7.5 CVE-2026-26127 .NET Denial of Service Vulnerability Patch Tuesday Dashboard in the Falcon Platform For a visual overview of the systems impacted by this month’s vulnerabilities, you can use our Patch Tuesday dashboard. This can be found in the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform within the Exposure Management > Vulnerability Management > Dashboards page. The preset dashboards show the most recent three months of Patch Tuesday vulnerabilities. Not All Relevant Vulnerabilities Have Patches: Consider Mitigation Strategies As we have learned with other notable vulnerabilities, such as Log4j, not every highly exploitable vulnerability can be easily patched. As is the case for the ProxyNotShell vulnerabilities, it’s critically important to develop a response plan for how to defend your environments when no patching protocol exists.  Regular review of your patching strategy should still be a part of your program, but you should also look more holistically at your organization's methods for cybersecurity and improve your overall security posture. Learn More The CrowdStrike Falcon platform regularly collects and analyzes trillions of endpoint events every day from millions of sensors deployed across 176 countries. Watch this demo to see the Falcon platform in action. Learn more about how CrowdStrike Falcon® Exposure Management can help you quickly and easily discover and prioritize vulnerabilities and other types of exposures here. About CVSS Scores The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is a free and open industry standard that CrowdStrike and many other cybersecurity organizations use to assess and communicate software vulnerabilities’ severity and characteristics. The CVSS Base Score ranges from 0.0 to 10.0, and the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) adds a severity rating for CVSS scores. Learn more about vulnerability scoring in this article.  Additional Resources For more information on which products are in Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates program, refer to the vendor guidance here. Learn how Falcon Exposure Management can help you discover and manage vulnerabilities and other exposures in your environments.  Make prioritization painless and efficient. Watch how Falcon Exposure Management enables IT staff to improve visibility with custom filters and team dashboards. Find out how CrowdStrike Falcon® Next-Gen Identity Security products can stop workforce identity threats faster.  Test CrowdStrike next-gen antivirus for yourself with a free trial of CrowdStrike® Falcon Prevent™. Tweet Share CrowdStrike 2026 Global Threat Report AI threats have reached a critical turning point. Access the definitive look at the cyber threat landscape. Download report Related Content February 2026 Patch Tuesday: Six Zero-Days Among 59 CVEs Patched CrowdStrike Is the Only Vendor to Be Named a Customers’ Choice in 2025 Gartner® Voice of the Customer for External Attack Surface Management January 2026 Patch Tuesday: 114 CVEs Patched Including 3 Zero-Days CATEGORIES Agentic SOC 48 Cloud & Application Security 139 Data Protection 21 Endpoint Security & XDR 351 Engineering & Tech 86 Executive Viewpoint 177 Exposure Management 116 From The Front Lines 198 Next-Gen Identity Security 67 Next-Gen SIEM & Log Management 111 Public Sector 40 Securing AI 25 Threat Hunting & Intel 210 CONNECT WITH US FEATURED ARTICLES October 01, 2024 CrowdStrike Named a Leader in 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms September 25, 2024 Recognizing the Resilience of the CrowdStrike Community September 25, 2024 CrowdStrike Drives Cybersecurity Forward with New Innovations Spanning AI, Cloud, Next-Gen SIEM and Identity Protection September 18, 2024 SUBSCRIBE Sign up now to receive the latest notifications and updates from CrowdStrike. Sign Up February 2026 Patch Tuesday: Six Zero-Days Among 59 CVEs Patched Copyright © 2026 CrowdStrike Privacy Request Info Blog Contact Us 1.888.512.8906 Accessibility ABOUT COOKIES ON THIS SITE In order to provide you with the most relevant content and best browser experience, we use cookies to remember and store information about how you use our website. See how we use this information in our Privacy Notice and more information about cookies in our Cookie Notice. Privacy Preference Center Privacy Preference Center Your Privacy Strictly Necessary Cookies Performance Cookies Functional Cookies Targeting Cookies Your Privacy When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. More information Strictly Necessary Cookies Always Active These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They may be set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies may process limited personal information, such as technical or device identifiers, where necessary to ensure the security, functionality, and integrity of the website or web portal. Such processing is strictly limited to what is required for these purposes and is not used for advertising or marketing. Cookies Details Performance Cookies Performance Cookies These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore does not identify you. If you do not allow these cookies, your visit to our website will not be included in our analytics, and our ability to monitor website performance and make improvements will be reduced. Cookies Details Functional Cookies Functional Cookies These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly. Cookies Details Targeting Cookies Targeting Cookies These cookies may be set on our site by our advertising partners. They assign a unique identifier to your browser or device and may track your activity across sites to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. If you do not allow these cookies, you will still see ads, but they may be less relevant to you. Cookies Details Cookie List Consent Leg.Interest checkbox label label checkbox label label checkbox label label Clear checkbox label label Apply Cancel Confirm My Choices Allow All