Privilege escalation via inherited chat route
Published May 29, 2026 · Updated May 29, 2026
Incorrect authorization in the OpenClaw Gateway before 2026.5.18 allows remote authenticated users to execute privileged commands via chat.send. The route evaluates inherited external-channel delivery context while retaining only the caller's operator.write scope, so command handlers accept requests requiring operator.approvals or operator.admin. Exploitation requires a scoped Gateway client and a session with an inherited external delivery route; resulting mutations can alter plugins, configuration, MCP, allowlists, and ACP settings.
Summary
What happened
Incorrect authorization in the OpenClaw Gateway before 2026.5.18 allows remote authenticated users to execute privileged commands via chat.send. The route evaluates inherited external-channel delivery context while retaining only the caller's operator.write scope, so command handlers accept requests requiring operator.approvals or operator.admin. Exploitation requires a scoped Gateway client and a session with an inherited external delivery route; resulting mutations can alter plugins, configuration, MCP, allowlists, and ACP settings.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-35674
- Published
- May 29, 2026
- Updated
- May 29, 2026
- Vendor
- OpenClaw Foundation
- Product
- OpenClaw
- Classifications
- CWE-863, CWE-862, T1068
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 29, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 29, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=0 <2026.5.18
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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