The DNS server you have to patch is your domain controller
CVE-2026-62878 scores 9.8: a stack-based buffer overflow in Windows DNS, no authentication and no user interaction. Microsoft's bulletin lists sixteen affected products and all sixteen require a reboot. In many of the networks we come across, that machine is also the one validating everybody's passwords, which is why it hasn't been rebooted in months — sometimes years. What the bulletin actually says, what goes down while it boots, and the checks we run before the window.