CVE-2026-44470 HIGH

CVE-2026-44470: Claude Desktop: Local Privilege Escalation via Directory Junction in CoworkVMService

Vendor Anthropics
Product claude-code
Weakness CWE-59
Published May 13, 2026
Last update May 13, 2026

CVSS base score

8.5/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

The Claude Desktop app gives you Claude Code with a graphical interface built for running multiple sessions side by side. Prior to 1.3834.0, the CoworkVMService component in Claude Desktop for Windows ran as SYSTEM and did not validate whether the VM bundle directory was a real directory or an NTFS directory junction before creating files within it. A local non-elevated user could replace the user-writable VM bundle directory with a directory junction pointing to an attacker-chosen location, causing the service to create a SYSTEM-owned file in an arbitrary directory. This could be leveraged for local privilege escalation. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.3834.0.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

May 13, 2026 CVE published
May 13, 2026 Record updated