GHSA-ccg8-46r6-9qgj is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) CWE-863 vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenClaw's dispatch-wrapper depth-cap mismatch can bypass shell-wrapper approval gating in system.run allowlist mode
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-ccg8-46r6-9qgj.
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-ccg8-46r6-9qgj 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 378,567 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
A wrapper-depth parsing mismatch in system.run allowed nested transparent dispatch wrappers (for example repeated /usr/bin/env) to suppress shell-wrapper detection while still matching allowlist resolution. In security=allowlist + ask=on-miss, this could bypass the expected approval prompt for shell execution.
Severity / Trust Model
OpenClaw’s documented model treats authenticated gateway callers as trusted operators and exec approvals as operator guardrails. This issue is still a real approval-boundary bypass and is triaged as Medium in that model.
Technical Details
- Dispatch-wrapper unwrapping stopped at
MAX_DISPATCH_WRAPPER_DEPTH. - Shell-wrapper extraction could return non-wrapper once depth was exhausted.
- Allowlist resolution could still succeed on partially unwrapped argv beginning with
/usr/bin/env. - Result: nested wrapper chains could execute
/bin/sh -c ...without fresh approval inallowlist+ask=on-miss.
Affected Packages / Versions
- Package:
openclaw(npm) - Latest published version at triage time:
2026.2.23 - Vulnerable versions:
<= 2026.2.23 - Patched versions (planned next release):
>= 2026.2.24
Fix Commit(s)
57c9a18180c8b14885bbd95474cbb17ff2d03f0b
Verification
- Added regression coverage for depth-overflow wrapper chains at resolution and
system.runinvocation layers. - Reproduced previous PoC behavior before fix, then confirmed denial after fix with
SYSTEM_RUN_DENIED: approval required.
Release Process Note
patched_versions is pre-set to the planned next release (2026.2.24) so once npm publish is complete, advisory publication can proceed without additional version edits.
OpenClaw thanks @tdjackey for reporting.
Publication Update (2026-02-25)
[email protected] is published on npm and contains the fix commit(s) listed above. This advisory now marks >= 2026.2.24 as patched.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | openclaw | all versions | 2026.2.24npm install openclaw@2026.2.24 |
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 2026.2.24 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-ccg8-46r6-9qgj 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-ccg8-46r6-9qgj can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-ccg8-46r6-9qgj. 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-ccg8-46r6-9qgj in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-ccg8-46r6-9qgj across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.