Microsoft has announced the resolution of a significant issue that had been causing third-party security applications to mistakenly flag a core component of the Windows operating system. This was detailed in a service alert released earlier this week.
Affected Systems
The scope of this issue spans a wide range of systems, encompassing both client platforms such as Windows 10 and Windows 11, as well as server environments from Windows Server 2012 through to Windows Server 2025.
Over the past several months, numerous users reported that their security software identified Windows assets, particularly WinSqlite3.dll, as vulnerable. This dynamic link library (DLL) is integral to the Windows system libraries, serving as the backbone for the SQLite database engine. The flagged vulnerability was associated with a memory corruption issue (CVE-2025-6965).
In a service alert shared with BleepingComputer, Microsoft confirmed the issue and announced an update to the WinSqlite3.dll component to eliminate these erroneous detections. The alert stated:
“Security scanning applications may report the Windows components WinSqlite3.dll as vulnerable. WinSqlite3.dll is included in Windows as part of core installation components and can be found in system folders. The latest version was included in Windows updates released June 2025 and later.”
Furthermore, Microsoft advised users to install the latest updates for their devices, emphasizing that these updates contain crucial improvements and resolutions to the identified issues. It is important to note that WinSqlite3.dll is separate from sqlite3.dll, which is not a component of Windows. Users can update the latter by downloading the latest versions of Microsoft applications from the Microsoft Store.
In a related context, Microsoft had previously addressed another false positive issue in October. This earlier problem led its Defender for Endpoint enterprise security platform to incorrectly classify SQL Server as being at the end of its life cycle. This bug impacted customers using Microsoft Defender XDR with SQL Server 2017 and 2019, despite the fact that SQL Server 2017 is supported until October 2027 and SQL Server 2019 until January 2030.
Additionally, just a week prior to the recent announcement, Microsoft rectified another false positive that caused Defender for Endpoint to erroneously flag BIOS firmware on select Dell devices as outdated, prompting unnecessary updates from users.
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