OpenClaw affected by SSRF via attachment/media URL hydration

Summary

Versions of the openclaw npm package prior to 2026.2.2 could be coerced into fetching arbitrary http(s) URLs during attachment/media hydration. An attacker who can influence the media URL (for example via model-controlled sendAttachment or auto-reply media URLs) could trigger SSRF to internal resources and exfiltrate the fetched bytes as an outbound attachment.

Plain-English Explanation

OpenClaw can send files by downloading them first.

On vulnerable versions (< 2026.2.2), if an attacker could get OpenClaw to treat a URL as the “file to attach”, OpenClaw would download that URL from the gateway machine and then send the downloaded bytes back out as an attachment.

That matters because the gateway can often reach internal-only endpoints that an attacker cannot (for example 127.0.0.1 services, private RFC1918 addresses, or cloud metadata endpoints). This is a data-leak risk.

This does not directly grant code execution or shell access; it is about making the gateway perform HTTP requests and returning the response bytes.

Affected Packages / Versions

• Package: openclaw (npm)
• Affected: < 2026.2.2
• Fixed: >= 2026.2.2

Release timeline (npm):

• 2026.2.1 published 2026-02-02T11:45:27Z
• 2026.2.2 published 2026-02-04T00:56:41Z
• This advisory was created 2026-02-05T10:42:26Z

Details

In affected versions, remote media fetching performed a raw fetch(url) without SSRF protections.

Starting in 2026.2.2, remote media fetching is guarded by SSRF checks (private/loopback/link-local blocking, DNS pinning, and redirect handling), so attempts to fetch 127.0.0.1, private RFC1918 space, or cloud metadata hostnames are rejected.

Proof of Concept

From any context where an attacker can influence an attachment/media URL, provide a media URL targeting an internal endpoint (example: http://127.0.0.1:9999/secret.txt).

On vulnerable versions (< 2026.2.2), the gateway fetches the URL and uses the response bytes as the attachment payload.

Fix

Fix commits:

• 81c68f582d4a9a20d9cca9f367d2da9edc5a65ae
• 9bd64c8a1f91dda602afc1d5246a2ff2be164647

Mitigation

Upgrade to openclaw >= 2026.2.2.

Thanks @simecek for reporting.