Microsoft has addressed a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in its Defender antivirus software that could allow attackers to seize complete control of affected systems. The flaw, named RoguePlanet, underscores the ongoing risks associated with security products themselves becoming attack vectors, potentially turning trusted protection mechanisms into weapons against the very systems they're designed to safeguard.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-50656, earned a CVSS score of 7.8, placing it in the high-severity category. It resides within the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine (mpengine.dll), a core component responsible for malware scanning, detection, and