CVE-2026-44470 Claude Desktop: Local Privilege Escalation via Directory Junction in CoworkVMService
Local attackers can escalate privileges to SYSTEM by exploiting a directory junction vulnerability in the CoworkVMService component of Claude Desktop.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-44470?
CVE-2026-44470 is a high-severity vulnerability in anthropics claude-code, published on 13 May 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official 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.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-44470?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Anthropic Claude Desktop.
How do I fix CVE-2026-44470?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-44470 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2026-44470 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-44470 in the wild and no public exploit code.