Microsoft's October Patch Tuesday, released October 13, addressed more than 1,400 vulnerabilities — counts put the total at 1,411 to 1,413 depending on how third-party flaws are tallied. That smashes September's record of roughly 1,000 and is more than the company patched in all of 2025.

Microsoft credits AI-assisted scanning, including its multi-model MDASH harness, for finding flaws faster. Most of the fixes were for Windows and Office, with dozens rated critical, and the batch included a Windows Shell flaw reported as already exploited.

Security experts quoted in the coverage urged teams to prioritise by exploitability rather than raw count. Only a small share of this year's Microsoft flaws have landed in CISA's known-exploited list, even as the year-to-date total has passed 4,000.