CVE-2026-53821 — Vulnerability in openclaw — CVE Details

### Summary In trusted-proxy Control UI mode, OpenClaw accepted a WebSocket client's declared operator scopes before those scopes were bound to a server-approved pairing or trusted-proxy authorization baseline. This issue affects trusted-proxy Control UI deployments. It does not apply to shared-secret Control UI sessions, which are treated as trusted operator sessions by design. ### Affected configurations This affects deployments using `gateway.auth.mode: "trusted-proxy"` for Control UI access where a restricted trusted-proxy user could open a Control UI WebSocket and present a fresh, unpaired device identity with elevated requested scopes. ### Impact An unpaired or restricted trusted-proxy Control UI client could obtain cached `operator.admin` authority on its live WebSocket connection. That authority could then be used for admin-gated Gateway RPCs until the connection was closed or revalidated. ### Patched Versions The first stable patched version is `2026.5.18`. ### Mitigations Upgrade to `openclaw@2026.5.18` or later. Before upgrading, restrict trusted-proxy Control UI access to users who should have the scopes they can request, and restart the gateway after changing trusted-proxy authorization policy.