GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx — @anthropic-ai/claude-code
HIGHGHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx is a high-severity (CVSS 7.3) CWE-426 vulnerability in @anthropic-ai/claude-code. A fix is available for @anthropic-ai/claude-code — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Claude Code: Insecure System-Wide Configuration Loading Enables Local Privilege Escalation on Windows
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,145 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
@anthropic-ai/claude-codenpmDescription
On Windows, Claude Code loaded 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.
Users on standard Claude Code auto-update have received this fix already. Users performing manual updates are advised to update to the latest version.
Thank you to hackerone.com/edbr for reporting this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | @anthropic-ai/claude-code | all versions | 2.1.75npm install @anthropic-ai/claude-code@2.1.75 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for @anthropic-ai/claude-code, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update @anthropic-ai/claude-code to 2.1.75 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-5cwg-9f6j-9jvx across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.