Executive brief
OpenClaw is a local web gateway used to provide trusted operator access to infrastructure services. The vulnerability allows an attacker who tricks a user into visiting a malicious webpage to bypass authentication on the local gateway and establish an authenticated session by brute-forcing the gateway password. This could enable an attacker with local network access to gain unauthorized control over gateway operations.
Technical details
The vulnerability is an authentication bypass chain combining three weaknesses: origin validation not enforced for non-Control-UI WebSocket clients, lack of password-failure throttling on loopback connections, and silent auto-pairing available to browser-origin clients. An attacker can exploit this by directing a victim to malicious web content that initiates WebSocket connections to the local gateway, then performs brute-force password attacks without rate limiting. Successful exploitation requires the gateway to use password authentication and the password to be guessable within feasible dictionary/brute-force attempts. Once authenticated, an attacker can invoke control-plane methods available to that operator role. The fix (v2026.2.25+) enforces origin checks, applies auth-failure throttling with loopback exemption disabled, and blocks silent auto-pairing for non-Control-UI browser clients.
Affected products
- OpenClaw OpenClaw <=2026.2.24
Timeline
- 2026-03-03: disclosed: Advisory published on GitHub and OSV
- 2026-02-26: patched: Fix released in version 2026.2.25