CVE-2026-22178
Openclaw ≤ 2026.2.19
Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:XCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-22178 is a medium-severity Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (CWE-1333) vulnerability in Openclaw Openclaw. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 23th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-22178 is a regex injection and denial-of-service vulnerability in OpenClaw versions prior to 2026.2.19. It occurs in the stripBotMention function, where RegExp objects are constructed directly from unescaped Feishu mention metadata. This flaw, classified under CWE-1333 (Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity), enables attackers to inject malicious patterns, with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L).
Remote attackers require no privileges or user interaction to exploit the vulnerability by crafting mention metadata containing nested-quantifier patterns or metacharacters. Successful exploitation triggers catastrophic backtracking in the regex engine, causing denial of service through blocked message processing. Additionally, attackers can remove unintended content before it reaches model processing, resulting in low integrity and availability impacts.
Mitigation is addressed in OpenClaw version 2026.2.19 and later via patches in GitHub commits 74268489137510b6f6349919d1e197b17290d92c and 7e67ab75cc2f0e93569d12fecd1411c2961fcc8c. Further details on the fix and impacts are provided in the GitHub security advisory GHSA-c6hr-w26q-c636 and the VulnCheck advisory at https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/openclaw-redos-and-regex-injection-via-unescaped-feishu-mention-metadata.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-12722
Vulnerability Data
OpenClaw versions prior to 2026.2.19 construct RegExp objects directly from unescaped Feishu mention metadata in the stripBotMention function, allowing regex injection and denial of service. Attackers can craft nested-quantifier patterns or metacharacters in mention metadata to trigger catastrophic backtracking, block…
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message processing, or remove unintended content before model processing.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation can discover inefficient regex patterns via performance or static analysis.
Development standards and tools can require safe regex construction and forbid known exponential patterns.
Denial-of-service protections limit resource exhaustion caused by expensive regex evaluation.
Input validation can constrain data that would otherwise trigger worst-case regex complexity.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing can detect and reject regex patterns with exponential worst-case complexity.
Secure development lifecycle mandates review of algorithmic efficiency, directly addressing ReDoS-prone regex.
Application security requirements can specify input-validation rules that limit regex complexity.
Secure architecture principles encourage avoidance of computationally expensive constructs such as catastrophic backtracking.
Secure coding standards explicitly prohibit or limit the use of inefficient regular expressions.