How should we interpret CVSS severity scores?

CVSS estimates technical severity, but it does not automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, asset criticality, known exploitation, and whether compensating controls exist. A Medium CVSS on an exposed production system can be more urgent than a Critical on an isolated non-production host.

Vulnerability Database

Q: What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

Q: What's the difference between a vulnerability, an exploit, and a zero-day?

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. Risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Q: Why do vulnerabilities keep reappearing in our environment?

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete asset discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host.

Q: How do we prioritize remediation without burning out the team?

Use a repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress so remediation is steady, not reactive.

Q: How can SynScan help reduce vulnerability risk over time?

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.

328,409

Total vulnerabilities in the database

OpenClaw: Gateway /tools/invoke tool escalation + ACP permission auto-approval

Summary

OpenClaw Gateway exposes an authenticated HTTP endpoint (POST /tools/invoke) intended for invoking a constrained set of tools. Two issues could combine to significantly increase blast radius in misconfigured or exposed deployments:

The HTTP gateway layer did not deny high-risk session orchestration tools by default, allowing a caller with Gateway auth to invoke tools like sessions_spawn / sessions_send and pivot into creating or controlling agent sessions.
ACP clients could auto-approve permission requests for risky tools with insufficient user interaction/guardrails, reducing the friction that should normally prevent silent execution or mutation.

Impact

If the Gateway is reachable by an attacker and they obtain a valid Gateway token, they may be able to:

Escalate from single-tool invocation to spawning/controlling sessions and reach command execution capabilities depending on tool policy and runtime environment.
Perform cross-session message injection via sessions_send.
In ACP-integrated scenarios, obtain unintended approvals for non-read/search tool permissions.

CVSS

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H (8.8)

Affected versions

openclaw < 2026.2.14

Fixed in

openclaw >= 2026.2.14

Remediation

The default behavior is now hardened:

PR #15390: deny high-risk tools over HTTP /tools/invoke by default (with gateway.tools.{allow,deny} overrides) and harden ACP permission handling.
Commit bb1c3dfe1: ACP clients now prompt for any non-read/search permission request (fail closed for mutating/execution/fetch operations).
Commit 539689a2f: security audit warns when gateway.tools.allow re-enables default-denied HTTP tools, since this can increase RCE blast radius if the Gateway is reachable.
Commit 153a7644e: ACP safe-kind inference is stricter to avoid accidental auto-approval due to substring matches (still auto-approves only confident read/search).

Mitigations / deployment guidance

Keep the Gateway loopback-only unless you have a strong reason not to: gateway.bind="loopback" / openclaw gateway run --bind loopback.
Avoid exposing the Gateway directly to the public internet. Use an SSH tunnel or Tailscale to access a loopback-bound Gateway.
Treat opting in to default-denied HTTP tools (via gateway.tools.allow) as high-risk and audit such configurations carefully.

Credits

OpenClaw thanks @aether-ai-agent for reporting this issue and contributing remediation work.

Published: Mar 2, 2026
Updated: Mar 5, 2026
GHSA: GHSA-943q-mwmv-hhvh
Severity: High
Exploit:

CVSS v3:

Severity: Unknown
Score:
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CWEs:

CWE-78

OWASP TOP 10:

A1 - Injection

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
openclaw	-	2026.2.14

Deep Security Visibility Without the Complexity

SynScan provides clear, real-time security insights so you can monitor your attack surface, spot risks early, and act fast—without extra complexity.

No setup fees
5-min deployment
Cancel anytime

Book a Demo

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.