OpenClaw implementations between versions 2026.3.31 and before 2026.4.10 are subject to a privilege‑escalation flaw. The heartbeat owner downgrade routine incorrectly discards data from local background async execution completion events. If an attacker supplies untrusted completion payloads, the system may leave a background job running in a privileged context that was not intended for that job. The flaw is an instance of CWE‑184 and elevates the attacker’s privilege on the host.

Affected systems include all deployments of the OpenClaw product between versions 2026.3.31 and 2026.4.09, which run on Node.js environments. The flaw applies to any system that has the vulnerable OpenClaw package installed.

The CVSS score of 9.1 signals a high‑severity problem. EPSS data is not available, but the lack of a KEV listing does not reduce the urgency. The advisory indicates that the flaw can be triggered locally by injecting malicious completion data into background async exec operations. An attacker with write access to the data or a compromised module can thus cause privileged execution without needing to bypass authentication. Properly validated completion events would block this escalation path.