OpenClaw is a Security Nightmare — Here's the Safe Way to Run It
OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that rocketed to 179,000 GitHub stars and triggered a Mac mini shortage, is riddled with critical vulnerabilities that have already been exploited in the wild. A one-click remote code execution flaw, 341 malware-laden skills on its marketplace, over 42,000 exposed instances on the public internet, and a vibe-coded social network that leaked 1.5 million API tokens — this is not a theoretical risk. Security researchers, government agencies, and firms from Cisco to Kaspersky have called it one of the most dangerous consumer AI deployments ever released. Yet OpenClaw remains genuinely useful. The solution is not to avoid it entirely but to run it on an isolated cloud VM where its blast radius is contained. Here's every documented vulnerability, and the exact steps to deploy it safely.