What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-22176: OpenClaw < 2026.2.19 - Command Injection via Unescaped Environment Variables in Windows Scheduled Task Script Generation

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-03-19 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-78

Description

OpenClaw versions prior to 2026.2.19 contain a command injection vulnerability in Windows Scheduled Task script generation where environment variables are written to gateway.cmd using unquoted set KEY=VALUE assignments, allowing shell metacharacters to break out of assignment context. Attackers can inject arbitrary commands through environment variable values containing metacharacters like &, |, ^, %, or ! to achieve command execution when the scheduled task script is generated and executed.

Affected products

• OpenClaw: before 2026.2.19 — fixed in 2026.2.19

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: OpenClaw 2026.2.19. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/commit/dafe52e8cf1a041d898cfb304a485fa05e5f58fb
• https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/security/advisories/GHSA-pj5x-38rw-6fph
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/openclaw-command-injection-via-unescaped-environment-variables-in-windows-scheduled-task

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