CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-35638 — Openclaw Openclaw security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.8

OpenClaw before 2026.3.22 contains a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Control UI that allows unauthenticated sessions to retain self-declared privileged scopes without device identity verification. Attackers can exploit the device-less allow path in the trusted-proxy mechanism to maintain elevated permissions by declaring arbitrary scopes, bypassing device identity requirements.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.8 (3.1)
Published
2026-04-09
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-286

Affected products

  • openclaw / openclaw

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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