Summary
OpenClaw: Process Safety - Unvalidated PID Kill via SIGKILL in Process Cleanup
OpenClaw CLI process cleanup used system-wide process enumeration and pattern matching to terminate processes without verifying they were owned by the current OpenClaw process. On shared hosts, unrelated processes could be terminated if they matched the pattern.
Affected Packages / Versions
- Package:
openclaw(npm) - Affected:
< 2026.2.14(including the latest published version2026.2.13) - Fixed:
2026.2.14(planned next release)
Details
The CLI runner cleanup helpers could kill processes matched by command-line patterns without validating process ownership.
Fix Commit(s)
- 6084d13b956119e3cf95daaf9a1cae1670ea3557
- eb60e2e1b213740c3c587a7ba4dbf10da620ca66
Release Process Note
This advisory is pre-set with patched version 2026.2.14. After 2026.2.14 is published to npm, the remaining step should be to publish this advisory.
Thanks @aether-ai-agent for reporting.
Impact
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
Already deployed Kodem?
See it in your environmentNew to Kodem? Get a demo →Remediation advice
Process cleanup is now scoped to owned processes only by filtering to direct child PIDs of the current process (ppid == process.pid) before sending signals.
Hardening follow-ups:
- Prefer graceful termination for resume cleanup (
SIGTERM, thenSIGKILLfallback). - Reduce false negatives from
psargv truncation by preferring wide output (ps -axww) with a fallback. - Tighten command-line token matching to avoid substring matches.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-27486? CVE-2026-27486 is a medium-severity security vulnerability in openclaw (npm), affecting versions < 2026.2.14. It is fixed in 2026.2.14.
- Which versions of openclaw are affected by CVE-2026-27486? openclaw (npm) versions < 2026.2.14 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-27486? Yes. CVE-2026-27486 is fixed in 2026.2.14. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-27486 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-27486 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2026-27486 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2026-27486? Upgrade
openclawto 2026.2.14 or later.