Technical impact
The vulnerability lies in OpenClaw's embedding fail‑over logic, where a request that falls back to a secondary provider still carries the primary provider's API key as a bearer token. This credential exposure flaw (CWE-200) exposes the key to an unintended vendor, allowing an attacker who can force or observe the fail‑over to obtain the key and potentially access protected resources or data. The actual damage depends on the provider configuration, the likelihood of fail‑over, and the permission level of the exposed key.
Affected Systems
OpenClaw, the npm package named openclaw, for all releases starting at 2026.3.28 up to but excluding 2026.8.1. These versions are affected by the credential exposure flaw in the memory embedding failover pathway.
Risk and Exploitability
The flaw carries a CVSS score of 6.0, indicating moderate severity. No EPSS information is available, and the issue is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. The exploit requires the application to be misconfigured with cross‑provider embedding fallback enabled, and an attacker must trigger a provider failure or otherwise force the fail‑over path. Once the fallback request is sent, the primary API key travels to the unintended vendor, creating a direct credential disclosure risk. Although the conditions for exploitation are non‑trivial, remediation is straightforward and the potential impact on credential confidentiality is significant.
