CVE-2026-22170

Description

### Summary BlueBubbles is an optional OpenClaw channel plugin. A configuration-sensitive access-control mismatch allowed DM senders to be treated as authorized when `dmPolicy` was `pairing` or `allowlist` and `allowFrom` was empty/unset. ### Severity Rationale (Medium) Severity is set to **medium** because: - this affects an optional plugin, not core messaging surfaces; - many deployments use owner-controlled/private BlueBubbles identities with limited external reachability; - practical exploitability depends on an untrusted sender being able to reach that specific BlueBubbles account identifier. In typical personal/self-hosted BlueBubbles setups, the mapped Apple identity is single-owner and not broadly reachable, so this is usually low practical risk. Risk is higher in deployments where the identifier is publicly reachable and/or agent tool permissions are broad. ### Technical Details 1. BlueBubbles DM policy defaults to `pairing` (`dmPolicy ?? "pairing"`). 2. Effective allowlist can be empty (`effectiveAllowFrom`). 3. DM/reaction authorization called `isAllowedBlueBubblesSender(...)`. 4. That delegated to shared `isAllowedParsedChatSender(...)`, which previously returned `true` for empty allowlists. 5. Result: unknown senders could bypass intended pairing/allowlist gating when `allowFrom` was empty. ### Affected Packages / Versions - Package: `openclaw` (npm) - Vulnerable versions: `<= 2026.2.21-2` - Planned fixed version: `2026.2.22` ### Fix The shared parsed-chat allowlist helper now fails closed on empty allowlists, restoring expected BlueBubbles DM gating behavior. BlueBubbles inbound gating was also refactored to use one shared DM/group decision helper for both message and reaction paths to reduce future drift. ### Fix Commit(s) - `9632b9bcf032c5f2280c3103961fde912ab1f920` - `2ba6de7eaad812e5e8603018e14e54e96bdd57dd` - `51c0893673de8e5cea64e64351dbfa4680ba0dec` - `4540790cb62412676f7b61cfc6e47443f84a251e` OpenClaw thanks @tdjackey for reporting.

How to fix CVE-2026-22170

To remediate CVE-2026-22170, upgrade the affected package to a fixed version below.

• —upgrade to 2026.2.22 or later

Is CVE-2026-22170 being exploited?

Low — EPSS is 0.1%, meaning exploitation activity has not been observed at scale.