CVE-2026-22170: OpenClaw: BlueBubbles (optional plugin) pairing/allowlist mismatch when allowFrom is empty

Summary

BlueBubbles is an optional OpenClaw channel plugin. A configuration-sensitive access-control mismatch allowed DM senders to be treated as authorized when dmPolicy was pairing or allowlist and allowFrom was empty/unset.

Severity Rationale (Medium)

Severity is set to medium because:

• this affects an optional plugin, not core messaging surfaces;
• many deployments use owner-controlled/private BlueBubbles identities with limited external reachability;
• practical exploitability depends on an untrusted sender being able to reach that specific BlueBubbles account identifier.

In typical personal/self-hosted BlueBubbles setups, the mapped Apple identity is single-owner and not broadly reachable, so this is usually low practical risk.

Risk is higher in deployments where the identifier is publicly reachable and/or agent tool permissions are broad.

Technical Details

1. BlueBubbles DM policy defaults to pairing (dmPolicy ?? "pairing").
2. Effective allowlist can be empty (effectiveAllowFrom).
3. DM/reaction authorization called isAllowedBlueBubblesSender(...).
4. That delegated to shared isAllowedParsedChatSender(...), which previously returned true for empty allowlists.
5. Result: unknown senders could bypass intended pairing/allowlist gating when allowFrom was empty.

Affected Packages / Versions

• Package: openclaw (npm)
• Vulnerable versions: <= 2026.2.21-2
• Planned fixed version: 2026.2.22

Fix

The shared parsed-chat allowlist helper now fails closed on empty allowlists, restoring expected BlueBubbles DM gating behavior. BlueBubbles inbound gating was also refactored to use one shared DM/group decision helper for both message and reaction paths to reduce future drift.

Fix Commit(s)

• 9632b9bcf032c5f2280c3103961fde912ab1f920
• 2ba6de7eaad812e5e8603018e14e54e96bdd57dd
• 51c0893673de8e5cea64e64351dbfa4680ba0dec
• 4540790cb62412676f7b61cfc6e47443f84a251e

OpenClaw thanks @tdjackey for reporting.