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Exposed gateways and CVE-2026-25253

OpenClaw gateways on port 18789 bound to 0.0.0.0 with auth off. A one-click RCE with CVSS 8.8.

Plain Markdown for agents: /articles/exposed-gateways-cve-2026-25253.md

Facts

  • The OpenClaw gateway listens on port 18789.
  • By default it was bound to 0.0.0.0 with auth off.
  • CVE-2026-25253 is a one-click remote code execution. CVSS 8.8.
  • Exposure counts differ by source: about 21.6k (Censys), 42.7k (Shodan), 135k+ (SecurityScorecard). All are approximate.

Why it matters

A gateway on 0.0.0.0 answers anyone who can reach the machine. With auth off, anyone can drive your agent. Your agent has a shell and your keys.

Check

Who is listening:

# macOS
lsof -nP -iTCP:18789 -sTCP:LISTEN
# Linux
ss -ltnp | grep 18789

*:18789 or 0.0.0.0:18789 means exposed. 127.0.0.1:18789 means local only.

Version:

openclaw --version

Compare with the fixed version in the advisory for CVE-2026-25253.

External probe, from another machine:

curl -sS -m 5 -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' http://YOUR_PUBLIC_IP:18789/

Any HTTP code means the port is reachable.

Fix

sma fix gateway-bind

This binds the gateway to 127.0.0.1. Then:

  1. Turn gateway auth on.
  2. Update to a version past the CVE-2026-25253 fix.
  3. Treat the machine as compromised if it was exposed. Rotate every key it held.
  4. Reach the gateway remotely through an SSH tunnel or a private network, never a public port.
ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 user@your-host

Related: fix network exposure.