CVE-2026-35603 MEDIUM

CVE-2026-35603: Claude Code: Insecure System-Wide Configuration Loading Enables Local Privilege Escalation on Windows

Vendor Anthropics
Product claude-code
Weakness CWE-426
Published April 17, 2026
Last update April 20, 2026

CVSS base score

5.4/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Claude Code is an agentic coding tool. In versions prior to 2.1.75 on Windows, Claude Code loaded the system-wide default configuration from C:\ProgramData\ClaudeCode\managed-settings.json without validating directory ownership or access permissions. Because the ProgramData directory is writable by non-administrative users by default and the ClaudeCode subdirectory was not pre-created or access-restricted, a low-privileged local user could create this directory and place a malicious configuration file that would be automatically loaded for any user launching Claude Code on the same machine. Exploiting this would have required a shared multi-user Windows system and a victim user to launch Claude Code after the malicious configuration was placed. This issue has been fixed on version 2.1.75.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

April 17, 2026 CVE published
April 20, 2026 Record updated