CVE-2026-44995

OpenClaw < 2026.4.20 - Arbitrary Code Execution via MCP stdio Environment Variables

State: Published
Severity: 5.4 Medium
Published: May 11, 2026
Updated: May 11, 2026
Reserved: May 8, 2026

Description

OpenClaw before 2026.4.20 contains an improper environment variable validation vulnerability in MCP stdio server configuration that allows attackers to execute arbitrary code. Malicious workspace configurations can pass dangerous startup variables like NODE_OPTIONS, LD_PRELOAD, or BASH_ENV to spawned MCP server processes, enabling code injection when operators start sessions using those servers.

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
4.0	5.4 Medium	CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N	VulnCheck
3.1	7.3 High	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	VulnCheck

Weaknesses

CWE-829 Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere

Affected Products

Product	Versions
OpenClawOpenClaw	before 2026.4.20Affected 2026.4.20Not affected

References

GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-mj59-h3q9-ghfh)vendor-advisory
Patch Commit (1)patch
Patch Commit (2)patch
VulnCheck Advisory: OpenClaw < 2026.4.20 - Arbitrary Code Execution via MCP stdio Environment Variablesthird-party-advisory

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