Arbitrary File Write via Write-Time Symlink Following (TOCTOU) in Claude Code

Claude Code validated that a target file path resided within the project working directory at permission-check time, but re-resolved the path at write time without repeating that validation. This time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) gap allowed an attacker who could write to the workspace to atomically replace a project file with a symlink, causing Claude Code to follow the symlink and write its output to an arbitrary file outside the project sandbox. Exploitation required the ability to win a race condition against the write operation and write access to the shared workspace, enabling a lower-privileged attacker to redirect benign edits to sensitive files (e.g., shell configuration) in a higher-privileged session. 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/c_h4ck_0 for reporting this issue.

Source published

7 Oct 2026 12:50:02 UTC

Source modified

7 Oct 2026 14:39:13 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

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CVSS 4.0 · 7.7 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N