GHSA-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) CWE-15 vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenClaw's config env vars allowed startup env injection into service runtime
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-8fmp-37rc-p5g7.
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-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 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 377,333 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 allowed dangerous process-control environment variables from env.vars (for example NODE_OPTIONS, LD_*, DYLD_*) to flow into gateway service runtime environments, enabling startup-time code execution in the OpenClaw process context.
Details
collectConfigEnvVars() accepted unfiltered keys from config and those values were merged into the daemon install environment in buildGatewayInstallPlan(). Before the fix, startup-control variables were not blocked in this path.
Affected Packages / Versions
- Package:
openclaw(npm) - Latest published affected version:
2026.2.19-2(published February 19, 2026) - Affected range (structured):
<=2026.2.19-2 || =2026.2.19 - Patched version (pre-set for next release):
>= 2026.2.21
Fix Commit(s)
2cdbadee1f8fcaa93302d7debbfc529e19868ea4
Release Process Note
patched_versions is pre-set to the planned next release (2026.2.21). Once that npm release is published, this advisory is ready to publish without further content edits.
OpenClaw thanks @tdjackey 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-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 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-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-8fmp-37rc-p5g7. 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-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.