Executive brief
OpenClaw is a sandbox environment platform that uses configuration hashing to determine when container instances need to be recreated. A bug in the hashing logic caused arrays in sandbox configurations to be sorted during hash calculation, masking legitimate configuration changes. As a result, reordering Docker network settings (DNS, bind mounts) could go undetected and stale containers would be reused instead of being rebuilt, potentially exposing outdated or incorrect sandbox environments.
Technical details
The vulnerability exists in the normalizeForHash function in src/agents/sandbox/config-hash.ts, which recursively sorted primitive-value arrays during hash normalization. This caused order-sensitive configuration arrays (such as Docker DNS and bind mount arrays) to produce identical hashes even when the order of elements changed. The hash is used in sandbox recreation logic to determine whether containers require rebuilding; the sorting suppressed necessary container recreation when only array ordering was modified. The attack vector is local/adjacent, requiring an attacker to modify sandbox configuration. The fix (available in version 2026.2.15) preserves array ordering during normalization while maintaining object key sorting for deterministic hashing.
Affected products
- OpenClaw OpenClaw <=2026.2.14
Timeline
- 2026-02-18: disclosed: Advisory published
- 2026-02-15: patched: Fix planned for version 2026.2.15
- 2026-02-16: other: Latest affected version (2026.2.14) published to npm