Vulnerability Report

CVE-2026-35603

Title: Local Privilege Escalation via untrusted configuration loading in Claude Code

Other

Proof Of Concept

No public PoC currently indexed for CVE-2026-35603.

CWE Category CWE-426
Published Date Apr 17, 2026
Modified Date Apr 22, 2026
Exploit Status Not Found
Score 5.4 CVSS v4.0
Exploit Probability (EPSS)
0.11%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2026-35603: 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.

Impacted Vendors

A
anthropic 1

Reference Links

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/security/advisories/GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx
CVSS v4.0
Source Entity [email protected]
Severity MEDIUM
5.4
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:P/PR:L/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/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
7.3
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:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns

CVE-2026-35603 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)

No public PoCs found in our database for this CVE.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

Attack Vector Matrix

Access Vector LOCAL
Complexity LOW
Privileges N/A
Interaction PASSIVE
CVSS Vector String 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/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

Affected Stack

No specific products linked.