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OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

nvd.nist.gov

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Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#271

Post by pacificpendant »

ctoth wrote: post #270
nightpool wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree—it looks like the OP didn't provide any sources for these numbers either. That's why I would have hoped that the original maintainer had a better set of metrics to dispute them. It doesn't seem like he does though :(

Those numbers aren't in the CVE. You introduced them, attributed them to a source that doesn't contain them, and now you're disclaiming them. Where did they come from, and what was the goal of sharing them?

I’m not the person you’re talking to but the stats are copied from the second link in the post, the web archive one.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#272

Post by globular-toast »

tomhow wrote: post #152
machinecontrol wrote: post #71

The root issue is that OpenClaw is 500K+ lines of vibe coded bloat that's impossible to reason about or understand. Too much focus on shipping features, not enough attention to stability and security. As the code base grows exponentially, so does the security vulnerability surface.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629849 and marked it off-topic.

I can't really think of a more on topic comment. The thread is about a security issue and the comment is about the quality of the codebase.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#273

Post by mvdtnz »

RIMR wrote: post #228
mvdtnz wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reply which was not an attack was detached from this sub thread as an attack. All I did was ask a clarifying question about why Telegram and Discord were specifically called out in this reply despite not being mentioned by the OP at all. I'd still like an answer to this question.

Just a heads up that everyone can still see the comment you made on your profile because it wasn't removed by moderator action. It was downvoted to oblivion because it was an attack on another user for using AI. That user said that they use OpenClaw to scrape city meetings for context so that they can more efficiently participate in local politics. You then attacked them, accusing them of "leaving AI slop comments on…

You're referring to a different comment. This is the comment I left which was removed, word for word,

> What does Telegram/Discord have to do with anything? The OP never mentioned either of these software suites. In fact the only mention of Telegram anywhere in the entire thread is you copy-pasting this exact message.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#274

Post by earnesti »

maccard wrote: post #255
mattstir wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is genuinely horrifying. I wonder what the stats are for an average "artisan, hand-typed" project would be if it got as much attention as OpenClaw has. But 1.8 CVEs a day should scare any rational people away from the software... right? Surely?

I’m not an openclaw user or a vibe coder but - the use case of OpenClaw is “give me access to all of your data, programs and information, and I will make decisions and do stuff without asking you permission”. It’s the MO of the project. Even if it was perfectly designed, I think it would have more RCEs by the fact that the Venn diagram of use of the app and high risk areas are a perfect circle

I'm OpenClaw user and I never would do that. You can do with OpenClaw that, but it is definitely not the only use case, and I would argue that not even the one that makes sense overall. Most people want to be careful which decisions you want to outsource and which not, and you can direct the AI to work however you prefer. Personally I have developed some projects with OpenClaw, and it does have very limited permissions.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#275

Post by claude_sh_1959 »

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #216
chatmasta wrote: post #211

I’m surprised people are still using OpenClaw. I assumed they’d have switched to Nanoclaw or Nemoclaw. Is OpenClaw just that much better, or is it all inertia? (I’ve never used any of them.)

I'm using Hermes. The same applies to all agents, don't give it free reign over all your stuff. Run it within a sandbox. https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent

which one is recommended? (on machine - oss)

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#276

Post by mey »

DrewADesign wrote: post #51
mey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than 25% of users seems like a pretty accurate "probably".

You know you’re getting into zealot territory when people are arguing semantics over the headline pointing to a zero authentication admin access vulnerability CVE that affects a double-digit percentage of users .

Thank you for the reality check. I like to assume people are coming from a certain baseline on HN, but I sometimes forget that certain topics have a passionate user base represented.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#277

Post by lnenad »

DrewADesign wrote: post #267
lnenad wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome to the world vibe coding created. Hard disagree. Vibe coding isn't responsible for people not doing the slightest due diligence when running this (pardon my French) shit. You can vibe code stuff and keep it at a much higher quality. And you can check who did the vibecoding and how they approached it, so the burden also falls on the person running the stuff to understand what they're running. This isn't an e…

In my experience, most garden variety security problems stem from a) the developer not understanding the implications of something (maybe because they’re new, or operating outside of their usual domain,) or b) the developer not paying close enough attention to realize they did something they know is stupid. We’re only human. Vibe coding obviously doesn’t make something insecure , per se, but saying it doesn’t reduce…

Very reasonable take, I agree 100%. But I don't you're putting any responsibility with users of the such very vibe coded apps. OpenClaw was primarily marketed towards devs and people in touch with IT. They should know better.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#278

Post by whoamii »

lnenad wrote: post #266
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #240

Steinberger has a vested interest in protecting his, and OpenAIs reputation from the ramifications of serious in-the-wild exploits like this. Or inviting any legal or regulatory scrutiny. They don’t even read the code in any serious capacity so excuse me for not taking any assessment of the situation from him too seriously. Might as well just ask Claude Code to assess it yourself. Welcome to the world vibe coding cre…

> Welcome to the world vibe coding created. Hard disagree. Vibe coding isn't responsible for people not doing the slightest due diligence when running this (pardon my French) shit. You can vibe code stuff and keep it at a much higher quality. And you can check who did the vibecoding and how they approached it, so the burden also falls on the person running the stuff to understand what they're running. This isn't an e…

“It’s not the cars! It’s not the guns! It’s not social media! It’s not vibe coding!”

Right. It’s always the people. They just tend to bodge things. All the time. So when there’s new foot guns, the inevitable will happen.

Re: OpenClaw privilege escalation vulnerability

#280

Post by plasticeagle »

Open Claw cannot be made "secure" by any normal definition of the word. Unless I'm very much mistaken, fundamentally it's a tool that lets LLMs do stuff.

So you take the output of an LLM, which is obviously impossibly to guarantee correct, and use that to choose a tool and execute it. Like, send an email or whatever. And you take the input for that LLM not only from prompts, and various files, but also your system and random stuff you download from the internet.

I am telling you people, this is lunacy. No good can come of this.

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