CVE-2026-35603Claude Code: Insecure System-Wide Configuration Loading Enables Local Privilege Escalation on Windows
Updated under an hour ago ()
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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.
- CVSS
- 5.4 MEDIUM (v4.0, CNA)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
- Weakness (CWE)
- CWE-426
- Known exploited
- Not in CISA's KEV catalog
- EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
- Not loaded for this CVE
- Assigned by
- GitHub_M
- NVD analysis
- Analyzed
- Record last updated
- Apr 20, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.