OpenClaw instances open to the internet present ripe targets
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It’s a day with a name ending in Y, so you know what that means: Another OpenClaw cybersecurity disaster.

This time around, SecurityScorecard’s STRIKE threat intelligence team is sounding the alarm over the sheer volume of internet-exposed OpenClaw instances it discovered, which numbers more than 135,000 as of this writing. When combined with previously known vulnerabilities in the vibe-coded AI assistant platform and links to prior breaches, STRIKE warns that there’s a systemic security failure in the open-source AI agent space.

“Our findings reveal a massive access and identity problem created by poorly secured automation at scale,” the STRIKE team wrote in a report released Monday. “Convenience-driven deployment, default settings, and weak access controls have turned powerful AI agents into high-value targets for attackers.”

  • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.worldEnglish
    331·
    13 hours ago

    This excerpt is the most astonishing to me:

    STRIKE also mentioned 12,812 OpenClaw instances it discovered being vulnerable to an established and already patched remote code execution bug. As of this writing, the number of RCE-vulnerable instances has jumped to more than 50,000. The number of instances detected that were linked to previously reported breaches (not necessarily related) has also skyrocketed from 549 to over 53,000, as has the number of internet-facing OpenClaw instances associated with known threat actor IPs.

    You’re telling me there’s a patch for an RCE, and the number of affected instances has not only not gone down, it has in fact increased 100x?

    • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      171·
      12 hours ago

      Honestly not surprised. Organizations have patch and vulnerability management procedures, people just run shit until they’re prompted to update, and if they git cloned they’ll probably never be prompted.

      • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        12 hours ago

        Right, but why would that lead to the number increasing? If there’s a fix on main, new clones wouldn’t have the vulnerability?

          • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            3·
            11 hours ago

            Or not exposed to the internet. Maybe the owner pulled the repo previously, left their weekend project alone for a bit, then came back to it after all this media attention.