Autonomous IT

August 2026 delivers the second-largest Patch Tuesday on record with nearly 400 CVEs, and Landon Miles, Jason Kikta, and Serena DiPenti sort out which ones actually matter. They start with the only actively exploited vulnerability of the month, CVE-2026-68820, a use-after-free in the Windows AFD driver that trades a race condition for SYSTEM privileges. Serena breaks down CVE-2026-62832, a User Profile Service privilege escalation that lets an attacker load another user's registry hive with no user interaction required.

Then there's the perfect 10.0 in Microsoft Teams that nobody needs to patch. Jason explains how cloud CVEs ended up in Patch Tuesday releases, why a third of this month's critical count requires zero customer action, and why the industry needs a separate disclosure mechanism before monthly CVE volume becomes pure noise. The crew also covers an ugly macOS screen sharing vulnerability that allowed authentication without credentials, the Linux kernel community's shift to issuing CVEs at scale, fresh takes from Black Hat and DEF CON on AI-driven vulnerability discovery, and why frontier models are forcing patching decisions to happen by policy instead of one CVE at a time.
Patch your stuff. See you next month.

Creators and Guests

Host
Jason Kikta
Jason Kikta is the Chief Technology Officer at Automox, where he leads the Product, Engineering, and IT/Security organizations. He has over 30 years of experience in IT, beginning with independent consulting and spanning more than two decades of military service, building and operating communications networks across the globe. During seven years at US Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, he focused on countering state actors and ransomware threats to critical infrastructure. Jason is an adjunct lecturer for the Alperovitch Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS and an adjunct senior technical advisor to the Institute for Security and Technology, focused on AI, cybersecurity, and ransomware.
Host
Landon Miles
Landon Miles is the host of the Hands-On IT podcast. Landon’s profound passion for technology isn't just evident in his voice, it’s apparent in how he breaks down cutting-edge tech trends, formats user-friendly tutorials, and gets into the weeds of the complexities of IT technologies. His approach makes the Hands-On IT podcast an essential resource for both seasoned IT pros and those new to the field, looking to enrich their tech experience. With a background that spans various facets of technology, Landon brings a wealth of knowledge and practical insights to each episode.

What is Autonomous IT?

Go from monotonous to autonomous IT operations with this series. Hosts from Automox, the IT automation platform for modern organizations, will cover the latest IT trends; Patch Tuesday remediations; ways to save time with Worklets (pre-built scripts); reduce risk; slash complexity; and automate OS, third-party, and configuration updates on all your Windows, macOS, and Linux endpoints. Automate confidence everywhere with Automox.