GHSA-xc7w-v5x6-cc87 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) Missing Authentication vulnerability in openclaw. A fix is available for openclaw — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenClaw has a webhook auth bypass when gateway is behind a reverse proxy (loopback remoteAddress trust)
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-xc7w-v5x6-cc87.
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-xc7w-v5x6-cc87 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.
openclawnpmDescription
Summary
The BlueBubbles webhook handler previously treated any request whose socket remoteAddress was loopback (127.0.0.1, ::1, ::ffff:127.0.0.1) as authenticated. When OpenClaw Gateway is behind a reverse proxy (Tailscale Serve/Funnel, nginx, Cloudflare Tunnel, ngrok), the proxy typically connects to the gateway over loopback, allowing unauthenticated remote requests to bypass the configured webhook password.
This could allow an attacker who can reach the proxy endpoint to inject arbitrary inbound BlueBubbles message/reaction events.
Affected Packages / Versions
- Package:
openclaw(npm) - Affected versions:
< 2026.2.12 - Patched versions:
>= 2026.2.12
Exposure / Configuration
- BlueBubbles is an optional channel plugin (intended to eventually replace the legacy iMessage plugin, which is also optional). It is not enabled by default and is not part of a standard OpenClaw configuration.
- Only deployments with the BlueBubbles webhook endpoint exposed through a reverse proxy are impacted.
Details
The BlueBubbles webhook handler accepts inbound events via an HTTP POST endpoint under the configured BlueBubbles webhook path.
In vulnerable versions, the handler would accept requests as authenticated if req.socket.remoteAddress is loopback, without validating forwarding headers. With common reverse-proxy setups, the gateway sees the proxy as the direct client (loopback), even when the original request is remote.
Fix
- Primary fix (released in
2026.2.12): remove loopback-based authentication bypass and require the configured webhook secret. - Defense-in-depth follow-up (next release after commit below): treat requests with forwarding headers as proxied and never accept passwordless webhooks through a proxy.
Fix Commit(s)
f836c385ffc746cb954e8ee409f99d079bfdcd2f(released in2026.2.12)743f4b28495cdeb0d5bf76f6ebf4af01f6a02e5a(defense-in-depth follow-up)
Mitigations
- Ensure a BlueBubbles webhook password is configured.
- Do not expose the gateway webhook endpoint publicly without authentication.
Thanks @simecek for reporting.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | openclaw | all versions | 2026.2.12npm install openclaw@2026.2.12 |
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 2026.2.12 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xc7w-v5x6-cc87 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-xc7w-v5x6-cc87 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-xc7w-v5x6-cc87. 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-xc7w-v5x6-cc87 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-xc7w-v5x6-cc87 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.