Claude Cowork escaped sandbox on Mac, gain full access to all files

Ben Lovejoy· Jul 27, 2026 · 12:16 PM UTC ·3 min read · 0 reactions · 0 comments · 9 views

TL;DR · WeSearch summary

The exploit, dubbed ShareRoot, could allow an attacker to read and write files stored anywhere on your Mac, as well as access login credentials for online services. Around half a million Mac users had co-work sessions exposed, and some still remain vulnerable to the exploit today … Claude Cowork allows the AI chatbot local access to selected files and folders on your Mac in order to carry out tasks on your behalf. Anthropic provides two protections against the bot running amok or being used by an attacker.

Key facts

▪The exploit, dubbed ShareRoot, could allow an attacker to read and write files stored anywhere on your Mac, as well as access login credentials for online services.
▪Around half a million Mac users had co-work sessions exposed, and some still remain vulnerable to the exploit today … Claude Cowork allows the AI chatbot local access to selected files and folders on your Mac in order to carry out tasks on
▪Anthropic provides two protections against the bot running amok or being used by an attacker.

How this story was covered

3 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 23 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.

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9to5Mac files mainly under tech. We currently carry 318 of its stories.

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Original article

9to5Mac · Ben Lovejoy

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Story provenance

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Record

Original publisher	9to5Mac
Canonical URL	https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/27/claude-cowork-escaped-sandbox-on-mac-gain-full-access-to-all-files/
Publication time	Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:16:29 +0000
Retrieval time	2026-07-27T12:26:17.397Z
Last seen	2026-07-27T12:26:17.397Z
Headline source	Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite)
Excerpt source	publisher body
Excerpt method	First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited.
Summary	WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer)
Summary source text	contentText
Citation coverage	Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL.
Cluster	F804cAfbvKl6 · 3 stories
Cluster logic	Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison.
Ranking reason	Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking.
Publisher visit	Yes — open original
Substitutes article?	No — link-out required for full text

Rights status (four layers)

Publisher-declared

No publisher-confirmed rights record for this source yet.

Machine-readable

No source-specific machine-readable restriction detected beyond the public feed.

WeSearch interpretation

WeSearch declared handling (basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed). This is WeSearch policy, not a legal grant on the publisher's behalf.

Unknown

Retrieval and training permissions are not asserted unless the publisher confirms them.

WeSearch handling by dimension

Indexing	May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)?	Allowed
Snippet	May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown?	Allowed
AI summary	May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article?	Limited
Retrieval / RAG	May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation?	Not asserted
Model training	May the content be used to train AI models?	Not asserted
Commercial reuse	May the content be reused commercially?	Not permitted

Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.

Open original publisher → Source rights JSON → Machine-readable provenance → Rights framework → WESEARCH-STORY-PROVENANCE-V1

Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand

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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at 9to5Mac.

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