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AD Rights Management Service (Part 1): Architecture, Deprecation, and Reconnaissance
Huntress maps AD RMS architecture and recon paths, setting up an offline key-extraction attack against its unrotatable 255-year root key.
Huntress's multi-part research examines Active Directory Rights Management Services, Microsoft's enterprise DRM role that still ships in Windows Server 2025 despite migration guidance favoring Azure Information Protection. Part 1 covers the trust model and how an ordinary domain account can locate RMS clusters and read rights-policy templates. Part 2 will detail four independent paths for extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key via service-group membership and the configuration database, enabling fully offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC certificate is valid from 2002 to 2258 and has no key-rotation mechanism, so a stolen key decrypts protected content indefinitely.
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The September 2026 Security Update Review
ZDI's September 2026 Microsoft update review lists two already-exploited Windows EoP zero-days and dozens of critical RCEs across Office, SQL Server, and Windows services.
The review catalogs Microsoft's September 2026 fixes, marking CVE-2026-85880 (Windows ALPC) and CVE-2026-81963 (Windows Update Stack) as already exploited elevation-of-privilege issues. It also lists critical RCE flaws in Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, SQL Server, Windows DNS, DHCP and Failover Cluster, plus graphics component RCEs. Azure-side fixes include Entra ID, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Language and Azure AD B2C elevation-of-privilege flaws.
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Microsoft plugs wormable RDP flaw, new speculative execution side channel vulnerabilities
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Tick Group Weaponized Secure USB Drives to Target Air
Unit 42 says the Tick group weaponized South Korean certified secure USB drives with SymonLoader malware to reach air-gapped Windows XP systems.
Unit 42 discovered that the Tick cyberespionage group, which targets Japan and South Korea, compromised an ITSCC-certified secure USB drive made by a South Korean defense company and used a new loader named SymonLoader to extract a hidden executable from these drives. SymonLoader only infects Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, suggesting deliberate targeting of legacy air-gapped systems used by government and defense organizations. The group also delivered HomamDownloader and SymonLoader via Trojanized Korean and Japanese software sent as spearphishing attachments. Unit 42 believes the attacks occurred multiple years ago and that this malware is not part of an active campaign.
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September 2026 Microsoft Patch Tuesday, (Tue, Sep 8th)
Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes a record 973 vulnerabilities, including 113 critical and two Windows privilege-escalation flaws already exploited in the wild.
Microsoft patched 973 vulnerabilities this month, its largest Patch Tuesday ever and far above the previous record of 664 set in July 2026, with 113 rated critical. Two Important elevation-of-privilege flaws (CVSS 7.8) are confirmed exploited in the wild: CVE-2026-81963 in the Windows Update Stack (improper link resolution, affects Windows 11 and Server 2025) and CVE-2026-85880 in Windows ALPC (heap-based buffer overflow allowing sandbox escape to SYSTEM, affects Windows 10 and Server 2012-2022). Critical unauthenticated RCEs (CVSS 9.8) were also fixed in Skype for Business Server (CVE-2026-66302), Windows Message Queuing (CVE-2026-69579), and Windows RRAS (CVE-2026-69590). SANS urges prioritizing the two exploited EoP fixes, then patching exposed MSMQ, RRAS, and Skype for Business deployments.
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July 2020 Patch Tuesday: Microsoft plugs wormable Windows DNS Server RCE flaw
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