Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-22561 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-22561 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-22561?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.8, published 31 March 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Anthropic Claude Desktop prior to 1.1.3363.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-22561?
- A patch was published on 2026-03-31: Fixed in version 1.1.3363 Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2026-22561 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in an operating system.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-22561?
- Check whether you run Anthropic Claude, Anthropic Claude Desktop or Microsoft Windows at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A DLL search-order hijacking vulnerability (CWE-427) exists in the Anthropic Claude for Windows installer (Claude Setup.exe) before version 1.1.3363. The installer attempts to load specific DLLs, such as profapi.dll, from its current working directory instead of secure system paths after User Account Control (UAC) elevation has occurred. A local attacker can exploit this by placing a malicious DLL with a matching name in the same directory as the installer. When a user runs the installer, the malicious code is executed with elevated privileges, leading to local privilege escalation (LPE). The issue is resolved in version 1.1.3363.
Affected products
- Anthropic Claude Desktop - Windows prior to 1.1.3363
Timeline
- 2026-03-31: disclosed
- 2026-03-31: advisory
- 2026-03-31: patched: Fixed in version 1.1.3363