CVE-2026-28459: OpenClaw has an arbitrary transcript path file write via gateway sessionFile

Summary

In OpenClaw versions prior to 2026.2.12, the gateway accepted an untrusted sessionFile path when resolving the session transcript file. This could allow an authenticated gateway client to create and append OpenClaw session transcript records at an arbitrary path on the gateway host.

Affected Versions

• Affected: openclaw < 2026.2.12
• Patched: openclaw >= 2026.2.12 (recommended: >= 2026.2.13)

Impact

An authenticated gateway client could influence where the gateway writes transcript data by supplying sessionFile outside of the sessions directory. Depending on deployment and filesystem permissions, this may enable arbitrary file creation and repeated appends, leading to configuration corruption and/or denial of service.

This issue does not, by itself, provide a proven remote code execution path.

Fix

The transcript path is now constrained to the sessions directory via resolveSessionFilePath(...) containment checks.

Fix commits:

• 4199f9889f0c307b77096a229b9e085b8d856c26
• (compat) 25950bcbb8ba4d8cde002557f6e27c219ae4deda

Credits

Thanks to @tubadeligoz for the report.