Microsoft has confirmed the existence of a serious security issue in the Notepad application for Windows 11. This security vulnerability is given a score of 8.8 due to the high security threat. The exploitation occurs through markdown links, which allows hackers to carry out Remote Code Execution (RCE) if the user opens a file containing a malicious link.
To address the vulnerability, Microsoft released the February 2026 update and also an application update through the Microsoft Store. Notepad just received markdown support and CoPilot features late last year to modernize the application.
Recently, various application security and stability issues have existed in Windows 11. Since 2026, Microsoft has issued two unplanned security patches because the updates provided resulted in issues such as the PC not being able to shut down, the PC refusing to enter hibernation mode and taskbar.exe failing to work.
