GHSA-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenClaw: denial of service through large base64 media files allocating large buffers before limit checks
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-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg.
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-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg 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 377,166 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.
openclawnpmclawdbotnpmDescription
Summary
Base64-backed media inputs could be decoded into Buffers before enforcing decoded-size budgets. An attacker supplying oversized base64 payloads can force large allocations, causing memory pressure and denial of service.
Attack Scenario Notes
- Recommended deployments bind the gateway to loopback by default and require gateway auth for HTTP endpoints. In that configuration, this is best modeled as a local/authorized DoS.
- If an operator exposes the gateway to untrusted networks (or disables/weakens auth and rate limits), treat this as a higher-severity network DoS risk.
Affected Packages / Versions
- openclaw (npm): <= 2026.2.13
- clawdbot (npm): <= 2026.1.24-3
Fixed In
- openclaw (npm): 2026.2.14 (planned)
- clawdbot (npm): no patched release planned; migrate to openclaw
Fix Commit(s)
- 31791233d60495725fa012745dde8d6ee69e9595
Credits
Thanks @vincentkoc for reporting.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | openclaw | all versions | 2026.2.14npm install openclaw@2026.2.14 |
| 📦npm | clawdbot | all versions | No fix |
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 2026.2.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg 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-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg. 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-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-w2cg-vxx6-5xjg across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.