CVE-2026-22217
Published: 18 March 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-22217 is a medium-severity Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere (CWE-829) vulnerability in Openclaw Openclaw. Its CVSS base score is 6.1 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 3.4th 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 are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Timely flaw remediation via patching directly mitigates the vulnerability by updating to OpenClaw 2026.2.23, which fixes the trusted-prefix fallback logic in shell-env.
Access enforcement mechanisms restrict low-privilege attackers from writing malicious binaries to trusted-prefix directories such as /opt/homebrew/bin, preventing exploitation.
Least privilege reduces the attack surface by limiting user and process privileges needed to modify trusted directories and confines damage from arbitrary code execution in the OpenClaw context.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local arbitrary binary execution via $SHELL env var manipulation directly enables privilege escalation (T1068) and execution flow hijack analogous to path/env interception (T1574).
NVD Description
OpenClaw version 2026.2.22 prior to 2026.2.23 contain an arbitrary code execution vulnerability in shell-env that allows attackers to execute attacker-controlled binaries by exploiting trusted-prefix fallback logic for the $SHELL variable. An attacker can influence the $SHELL environment variable on systems…
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with writable trusted-prefix directories such as /opt/homebrew/bin to execute arbitrary binaries in the OpenClaw process context.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2026-22217, published on 2026-03-18, is an arbitrary code execution vulnerability affecting OpenClaw versions 2026.2.22 prior to 2026.2.23. The issue resides in the shell-env component and arises from exploitation of trusted-prefix fallback logic for the $SHELL environment variable, mapped to CWE-829 (Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere). It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.1 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L).
A local attacker with low privileges can exploit this vulnerability by influencing the $SHELL environment variable on systems where trusted-prefix directories, such as /opt/homebrew/bin, are writable. Successful exploitation enables execution of attacker-controlled binaries within the OpenClaw process context, potentially leading to integrity and availability impacts despite no confidentiality loss.
Advisories recommend updating to OpenClaw version 2026.2.23 or later to mitigate the issue. The fixing commit is available at https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/ff10fe8b91670044a6bb0cd85deb736a0ec8fb55, with further details in the GitHub security advisory at https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/security/advisories/GHSA-p4wh-cr8m-gm6c and the VulnCheck advisory at https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/openclaw-arbitrary-binary-execution-via-shell-environment-variable-trusted-prefix-fallback.
Details
- CWE(s)