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MEDIUM severity

CVE-2026-26972 — openclaw

MEDIUMFix: openclaw/openclaw@7f0489e

CVE-2026-26972 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.7) Path Traversal vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.

OpenClaw has a Path Traversal in Browser Download Functionality

Also known asGHSA-xwjm-j929-xq7c
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Nov 1, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
  • CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-26972.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk+0.01%
Lower risk than most CVEs13th percentile — riskier than 13% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.24%0.48%0.73%0.0%0.2%May 26Aug 26Nov 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.

132other npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream
openclawnpm
3.4Mdownloads / week

Description

Summary

OpenClaw browser download helpers accepted an unsanitized output path. When invoked via the browser control gateway routes, this allowed path traversal to write downloads outside the intended OpenClaw temp downloads directory.

This issue is not exposed via the AI agent tool schema (no download action). Exploitation requires authenticated CLI access or an authenticated gateway RPC token.

Affected Packages / Versions

  • Package: openclaw (npm)
  • Affected: >=2026.1.12, <=2026.2.12
  • Fixed: >=2026.2.13

Details

Affected code: src/browser/pw-tools-core.downloads.ts (waitForDownloadViaPlaywright, downloadViaPlaywright).

Fixed entrypoints (as of 2026.2.13):

  • Gateway browser control routes /wait/download and /download now restrict path to DEFAULT_DOWNLOAD_DIR via resolvePathWithinRoot.

Fix Commit(s)

  • 7f0489e4731c8d965d78d6eac4a60312e46a9426

Mitigation

Upgrade to openclaw >=2026.2.13.

Thanks @locus-x64 for reporting.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
📦npmopenclaw≥ 2026.1.12&&< 2026.2.132026.2.13npm install openclaw@2026.2.13

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations
Application
openclawopenclaw
≥ 2026.1.12 && < 2026.2.13
range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for openclaw, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update openclaw to 2026.2.13 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-26972 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary OpenClaw browser download helpers accepted an unsanitized output path. When invoked via the browser control gateway routes, this allowed path traversal to write downloads outside the intended OpenClaw temp downloads directory. This issue is not exposed via the AI agent tool schema (no `download` action). Exploitation requires authenticated CLI access or an authenticated gateway RPC token. ### Affected Packages / Versions - Package: `openclaw` (npm) - Affected: >=2026.1.12, <=2026.2.12 - Fixed: >=2026.2.13 ### Details Affected code: `src/browser/pw-tools-core.downloads.ts` (`w
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2026-26972: openclaw — Fixed in 2026.2.13