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Hey, author here. I don't think that the security vulns are the most important reason OC is dangerous. Security vulnerabilities are bad but the blast radius is

Hey, author here. I don't think that the security vulns are the most important reason OC is dangerous. Security vulnerabilities are bad but the blast radius is limited to the person who gets pwnd. By comparison, OpenClaw has demonstrated potential to really hurt _other_ people, and it is not hard to see how it could do so en masse.

enraged_camel 8mo ago
>> Security vulnerabilities are bad but the blast radius is limited to the person who gets pwnd No? Via prompt injection an attacker can gain access to the entire machine, which can have things like credentials to company systems (e.g. env variables). They can also learn private details about the victim’s friends and family and use those as part of a wider phishing campaign. There are dozens of similar scenarios where the blast radius reaches well beyond the victim.
- pizlonator 8mo ago
  Agree with author - it's especially scary that even without getting hacked, openclaw did something harmful That's not to say that prompt injection isn't also scary. It's just that software getting hacked by bad actors has always been a thing. Software doing something scary when no human did anything malicious is worse.
- sejje 8mo ago
  No? Because I wouldn't give it access to those things. I wouldn't let it loose on my personal PC. If I store my wallet on the sidewalk, that would probably be a problem. So I won't. A prompt injection could exfiltrate an LLM API key, and some ai-generated code.
  - enraged_camel 8mo ago
    >> No? Because I wouldn't give it access to those things. Not everyone is like that. In fact, OpenClaw's true "power" is unlocked when the user gives it full access. That's what the overwhelming majority of hype is coming from. Most people who actually get a lot of value out of it don't run it on e.g. docker containers on VPSs that can only be accessed via Tailscale + SSH.
simonw 8mo ago
I think there is a much higher risk of it hurting the people are using it directly, especially once bad people realize how vulnerable they are. Not to mention a bad person who takes control of a network of OpenClaw instances via their insecurities can do the other bad things you are describing at a much greater scale.

enraged_camel 8mo ago

>> Security vulnerabilities are bad but the blast radius is limited to the person who gets pwnd No? Via prompt injection an attacker can gain access to the entire machine, which can have things like credentials to company systems (e.g. env variables). They can also learn private details about the victim’s friends and family and use those as part of a wider phishing campaign. There are dozens of similar scenarios where the blast radius reaches well beyond the victim.

pizlonator 8mo ago
Agree with author - it's especially scary that even without getting hacked, openclaw did something harmful That's not to say that prompt injection isn't also scary. It's just that software getting hacked by bad actors has always been a thing. Software doing something scary when no human did anything malicious is worse.
sejje 8mo ago
No? Because I wouldn't give it access to those things. I wouldn't let it loose on my personal PC. If I store my wallet on the sidewalk, that would probably be a problem. So I won't. A prompt injection could exfiltrate an LLM API key, and some ai-generated code.
- enraged_camel 8mo ago
  >> No? Because I wouldn't give it access to those things. Not everyone is like that. In fact, OpenClaw's true "power" is unlocked when the user gives it full access. That's what the overwhelming majority of hype is coming from. Most people who actually get a lot of value out of it don't run it on e.g. docker containers on VPSs that can only be accessed via Tailscale + SSH.

simonw 8mo ago

I think there is a much higher risk of it hurting the people are using it directly, especially once bad people realize how vulnerable they are. Not to mention a bad person who takes control of a network of OpenClaw instances via their insecurities can do the other bad things you are describing at a much greater scale.