Privilege escalation in Anthropic Claude Desktop
CVE-2026-44470
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.
EPSS: 0.002 (5.0th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
Affected products
- Anthropic Claude_desktop
- Anthropics Claude-code — versions < 1.3834.0
- Microsoft Windows
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
- security-advisories@github.com (x_refsource_CONFIRM, Vendor Advisory)
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-44470?
- CVE-2026-44470 is a high-severity vulnerability in Anthropic Claude Desktop, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-05-13.
- How severe is CVE-2026-44470?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.