HIGH: Microsoft Defender Burns Again as Two New Zero-Days Hit Active Exploitation
Microsoft confirmed on May 21 that CVE-2026-41091, a CVSS 7.8 link-following privilege escalation in the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine, and CVE-2026-45498, a denial-of-service flaw in the Defender Antimalware Platform, are both under active exploitation. CISA added both to the KEV catalog with a June 3 federal remediation deadline. Defender engine version 1.1.26040.8 and Antimalware Platform 4.18.26040.7 contain the fixes and ship automatically through definition updates.