OpenClaw Command Injection Vulnerability via WebSocket Gateway API
Vulnerability
A command injection vulnerability has been identified in OpenClaw, a personal AI assistant, in versions prior to 2026.1.20. The issue allows an unauthenticated local client to exploit the Gateway WebSocket API by writing configuration data through the 'config.apply' method. This data could include unsafe 'cliPath' values that were subsequently used for command discovery, enabling the execution of arbitrary commands as the gateway user.
Impact
Exploitation of this vulnerability allows a local process to execute arbitrary commands as the user running the gateway process.
Remediation
Users are advised to upgrade to version 2026.1.20 or later. If an immediate upgrade is not possible, set 'gateway.auth' and avoid using custom 'cliPath' values.
Vulnerability Rating
Our algorithm analyzes dozens of metrics to generate these 8 key vulnerability categories, which are then combined to calculate the overall risk score.