GHSA-mwxv-35wr-4vvj is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-289 vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenClaw has gateway plugin auth bypass via encoded dot-segment traversal in protected /api/channels paths
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-mwxv-35wr-4vvj.
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-mwxv-35wr-4vvj 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
Gateway plugin route auth protection for /api/channels could be bypassed using encoded dot-segment traversal (for example ..%2f) in path variants that plugin handlers normalize.
Affected Packages / Versions
- Package: npm
openclaw - Latest published vulnerable version:
2026.2.25 - Vulnerable version range:
<= 2026.2.25 - Patched version:
2026.2.26(planned next release)
Impact
Under affected versions, crafted alternate paths could bypass gateway auth checks for protected plugin channel routes when plugin handlers decode/canonicalize the incoming path and then route to /api/channels/... handlers.
Fix Commit(s)
258d615c45527ffda37cecd08cd268f97461bde0
Release Process Note
patched_versions is pre-set to the planned next release (2026.2.26). After npm publish, maintainers only need to publish the advisory.
OpenClaw thanks @zpbrent for reporting.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | openclaw | all versions | 2026.2.26npm install openclaw@2026.2.26 |
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 2026.2.26 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-mwxv-35wr-4vvj 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-mwxv-35wr-4vvj can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-mwxv-35wr-4vvj. 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-mwxv-35wr-4vvj in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-mwxv-35wr-4vvj across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.