CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-44470 — The Claude Desktop app gives you Claude Code with a graphical interface built for running multiple sessions side by side

High CVSS 8.5

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.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.5 (4.0)
Published
2026-05-13
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
windows/system
Weaknesses
CWE-59, CWE-269

Affected products

  • anthropic / claude_desktop

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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