CVE-2026-53816: OpenClaw: Paired nodes could forge exec lifecycle events without system.run provenance

Summary

OpenClaw nodes send lifecycle events back to the gateway. In affected releases, a paired node could send an exec lifecycle event that was accepted without enough provenance tying it to an authorized system.run request.

This issue affects the node event boundary. It does not allow an unauthenticated caller to reach the gateway; the attacker must already control a paired node connection.

Affected configurations

This affects deployments with a paired node where that node can send crafted node.event messages to the gateway and the target agent/session can process exec lifecycle events.

Impact

A malicious or compromised paired node could make the gateway treat attacker-supplied event data as an exec lifecycle result. In the vulnerable flow, that could steer the target session into an exec-event path that exposed capabilities the reduced node surface should not have provided.

The issue is a missing provenance check for node-originated lifecycle events.

Patched Versions

The first stable patched version is 2026.5.18.

Mitigations

Upgrade to [email protected] or later. Pair nodes only from trusted environments, and remove/re-pair nodes that may have been compromised.