Microsoft Patch Tuesday for March 2026 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

Tuesday, March 10, 2026 18:23

Microsoft has released its monthly security update for March 2026 which includes 79 vulnerabilities, including three that Microsoft marked as “critical.” The remaining vulnerabilities listed are classified as “important.” Microsoft assessed that exploitation of the three “critical” vulnerabilities is “less likely.”  

CVE-2026-26110 and CVE-2026-26113 are “critical” Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities that could allow an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally; the former is a type confusion issue caused by access to a resource using an incompatible type, and the latter is an untrusted pointer dereference. 

CVE-2026-26144 is a “critical” information disclosure vulnerability affecting Microsoft Excel. This vulnerability is due to improper neutralization of input in Microsoft Excel which could enable an unauthorized attacker to disclose information on affected systems. This vulnerability has not been previously publicly disclosed or exploited, and Microsoft has rated it as “exploitation unlikely.” 

CVE-2026-26109 is an “important” vulnerability in Microsoft Office Excel that allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally due to an out-of-bounds read. This issue could enable an attacker to compromise the affected system. vulnerability in Microsoft Office Excel that allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code locally due to an out-of-bounds read. This issue could enable an attacker to compromise the affected system. 

CVE-2026-26106 and CVE-2026-26114 are “important” remote code execution vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft SharePoint Server. CVE-2026-26106 is caused by improper input validation in Microsoft Office SharePoint, while CVE-2026-26114 results from deserialization of untrusted data. In both cases, an authenticated attacker with at least Site Member permissions (PR:L) can execute code remotely over a network on the SharePoint Server. 

CVE-2026-26115, CVE-2026-26116, and CVE-2026-21262 are “important” elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in SQL Server, each with a CVSS v3.1 highest base score of 8.8. CVE-2026-26115 is caused by improper input validation in SQL Server, while CVE-2026-26116 is due to improper neutralization of special elements used in a SQL command ('sqlinjection'). CVE-2026-21262 results from improper access control in SQL Server. In each case, an authorized attacker could exploit the vulnerability over a network to elevate privileges, potentially gaining administrator privileges. CVE-2026-21262 has also been publicly disclosed. 

CVE-2026-26118 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Azure MCP Server Tools with a CVSS v3.1 highest base score of 8.8. It has been rated “important” by Microsoft. This vulnerability is caused by server-side request forgery (SSRF) in Azure MCP Server, which allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network. An attacker could exploit this issue by sending specially crafted input to an Azure Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server tool that accepts user-provided parameters. If the attacker can interact with the MCP-backed agent, they may submit a malicious URL instead of a standard Azure resource identifier. The MCP Server then sends an outbound request to that URL, possibly includingits managed identity token. The attacker can capture this token without requiring administrative access. A successful attacker could obtain the permissions associated with the MCP Server’s managed identity, enabling access or actions on any resources authorized for that identity. However, the attacker does not gain broader tenant-level or administrator permissions—only those linked to the compromised managed identity.  

CVE-2026-26128 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows SMB Server that has been rated “important” by Microsoft. This vulnerability is caused by improper authentication in Windows SMB Server, allowing an authorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges. 

Cisco Talos would also like to highlight several vulnerabilities that are only rated as “important,” but Microsoft lists as “more likely” to be exploited:  

• CVE-2026-23668 - Windows Graphics Component Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability 
• CVE-2026-24289 - Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability 
• CVE-2026-24291 - Windows Accessibility Infrastructure (ATBroker.exe) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability 
• CVE-2026-24294 - Windows SMB Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability 
• CVE-2026-25176 - Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability 
• CVE-2026-25187 - Winlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability 

A complete list of all the other vulnerabilities Microsoft disclosed this month is available on its update page. In response to these vulnerability disclosures, Talos is releasing a new Snort rule set that detects attempts to exploit some of them. Please note that additional rules may be released at a future date and current rules are subject to change pending additionalinformation. Cisco Security Firewall customers should use the latest update to their ruleset by updating their SRU. Open-source Snort Subscriber Rule Set customers can stay up to date by downloading the latest rule pack available for purchase on Snort.org.  

The rules included in this release that protect against the exploitation of many of these vulnerabilities are: 66089 - 66092, 66096, 66097, 66101 - 66104. 

The following Snort 3 rules are also available: 301442 – 301446.