Executive brief
OpenClaw is an API gateway that manages authentication using bearer tokens stored in Kubernetes secrets. After a secret is rotated, the gateway can continue accepting revoked tokens indefinitely until the server restarts, allowing unauthorized access to APIs that should no longer accept those credentials.
Technical details
OpenClaw's gateway HTTP and WebSocket handlers resolve bearer authentication credentials at server startup and cache them statically, rather than re-resolving them per-request. When a SecretRef is rotated in the runtime environment, the gateway process continues to validate incoming requests against the stale, startup-time authentication snapshot. An attacker with knowledge of a revoked bearer token can use it to gain unauthorized access to gateway endpoints until the process restarts. The vulnerability affects all versions prior to 2026.4.15, which was patched to call getResolvedAuth() on each HTTP request and WebSocket upgrade against the current runtime secret snapshot.
Affected products
- OpenClaw OpenClaw < 2026.4.15
Timeline
- 2026-04-16: disclosed
- 2026-04-15: patched: Version 2026.4.15 released with fix