Two Windows Defender zero-days that disable the antivirus are still unpatched two weeks after researcher leaked them - attackers now chaining them with custom malware
Update on the Windows Defender zero-day situation: Huntress now confirms attackers are chaining the three flaws leaked April 3 by a researcher called 'Chaotic Eclipse' to deploy a custom tunneling agent named 'BeigeBurrow' on victim systems. Microsoft patched one of the three (BlueHammer, CVE-2026-33825) on April 14, but the other two are still unpatched two weeks later: RedSun lets attackers gain SYSTEM privileges even on patched machines, and UnDefend stops Defender from receiving signature updates - effectively turning off the antivirus. CISA gave federal agencies until May 6 to deploy the BlueHammer patch.
- Check
- Verify every Windows endpoint has the April 14 patch installed, and treat any host where Defender hasn't received signature updates in over 48 hours as suspicious.
- Affected
- Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2019 and later with Defender enabled. The April 14 patch closes only BlueHammer (CVE-2026-33825); RedSun (privilege escalation, no patch) and UnDefend (Defender update blocker, no patch) still affect every Windows endpoint regardless of patch status. Hands-on-keyboard exploitation is now confirmed in the wild.
- Fix
- Deploy the April 14 patch to every Windows endpoint and verify with MDM rather than trusting WSUS compliance numbers. Alert when a host's Defender signatures fall more than 48 hours out of date - that's the UnDefend tell. Watch for the enumeration commands Huntress documented on workstations: 'whoami /priv', 'cmdkey /list', 'net group' are unusual outside admin tooling. Block known BeigeBurrow command-and-control IPs.