Vulnerability Report

CVE-2026-22561

Title: Local Privilege Escalation via DLL Search-Order Hijacking in Anthropic Claude Installer

Auth Bypass

Proof Of Concept

No public PoC currently indexed for CVE-2026-22561.

CWE Category NVD-CWE-noinfo

Published Date Mar 31, 2026

Modified Date May 10, 2026

Exploit Status Not Found

Score 4.7 CVSS v4.0

Exploit Probability (EPSS)

0.18%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2026-22561: Uncontrolled search path elements in Anthropic Claude for Windows installer (Claude Setup.exe) versions prior to 1.1.3363 allow local privilege escalation via DLL search-order hijacking. The installer loads DLLs (e.g., profapi.dll) from its own directory after UAC elevation, enabling arbitrary code execution if a malicious DLL is planted alongside the installer.

Impacted Vendors

anthropic 1

Reference Links

https://trust.anthropic.com/resources?s=1cvig6ldp3zvuj1yffzr11&name=cve-2026-22561-dll-search-order-hijacking-in-claude-for-windows-installer

CVSS v4.0

Source Entity [email protected]

Severity MEDIUM

4.7

Attack Vector

LOCAL

Complexity

LOW

Privileges

N/A

Interaction

PASSIVE

Confidentiality

N/A

Integrity

N/A

Availability

N/A

Scope

N/A

RAW VECTOR

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

CVSS v3.1

Source Entity [email protected]

Severity HIGH

7.8

Attack Vector

LOCAL

Complexity

LOW

Privileges

N/A

Interaction

REQUIRED

Confidentiality

N/A

Integrity

N/A

Availability

N/A

Scope

UNCHANGED

RAW VECTOR CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns