GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-184 vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenClaw safeBins grep -e File Read Bypass (stdin-only policy bypass)
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
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.
openclawnpmDescription
Summary
OpenClaw tools.exec.safeBins had a stdin-only policy bypass for grep.
If pattern input was supplied through -e / --regexp, the validator consumed the pattern as a flag value and still allowed one positional operand. That positional could be a bare filename like .env.
Affected Packages / Versions
- Package:
openclaw(npm) - Latest published vulnerable version:
2026.2.19-2 - Structured vulnerable range:
<= 2026.2.19-2 - Planned fixed range for next release:
>= 2026.2.21
Exploit Preconditions
tools.exec.safeBinsmust includegrep(this is opt-in;grepis not in the default safe-bin list).- An actor must be able to invoke exec tooling under that profile.
Technical Details
src/infra/exec-safe-bin-policy.ts configured grep with maxPositional: 1 and allowed -e / --regexp value flags.
Because -e consumes the pattern in flag-value position, the remaining positional budget could be used for a file operand.
Example accepted input in vulnerable builds:
grep -e SECRET .env
That violated the intended stdin-only guarantee for safe bins.
Impact
With grep opt-in enabled, callers could read bare-relative files from the working directory (for example .env, credentials.txt) in flows expected to be stdin-only.
Severity Rationale
CVSS v3.1 is set to:
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N (5.3, Medium)
AC:H is used because exploitation depends on a non-default configuration (grep must be explicitly added to safe bins) in addition to normal low-privilege tool-invocation capability.
Fix Commit(s)
c6ee14d60e4cbd6a82f9b2d74ebeb1e8ee814964
Release Process Note
patched_versions is pre-set to >= 2026.2.21 so this advisory is ready to publish after the 2026.2.21 npm release is live.
OpenClaw thanks @athuljayaram for reporting.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | openclaw | all versions | 2026.2.21npm install openclaw@2026.2.21 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
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.
Fix
Update openclaw to 2026.2.21 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-3xfw-4pmr-4xc5 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.