Executive brief
OpenClaw is a platform that provides AI automation and task execution capabilities. The Gateway component manages permissions and configuration for Talk Voice features. A privilege escalation bug allowed users with lower-level operator permissions to modify admin-only voice configuration settings, potentially leading to unauthorized system configuration changes and service disruption.
Technical details
The vulnerability is a privilege management failure (CWE-269) in the OpenClaw Gateway's Talk Voice module. The /voice set config write endpoint failed to enforce the operator.admin scope requirement, allowing authenticated users holding only the operator.write scope to make administrative configuration changes via the chat.send function. The root cause was missing scope validation on the configuration endpoint. The attack requires network access to the Gateway and valid authentication credentials with operator.write scope. An attacker with such credentials could modify persistent Talk Voice settings. The fix, released in v2026.3.28 (commit e346947), enforces the operator.admin scope guard on voice configuration writes and aligns the scope checking pattern with established phone-control security patterns using optional chaining.
Affected products
- OpenClaw openclaw <=2026.3.24
Timeline
- 2026-04-07: disclosed: GHSA-3q42-xmxv-9vfr published
- 2026-03-25: patched: Fix commit e34694733fc64931ed4a543c73d84ad3435d5df1 merged
- 2026-03-31: other: Advisory published by maintainer steipete