Which versions of Crabbox are affected by CVE-2026-45223?

CVE-2026-45223 is a high-severity authentication bypass in Crabbox coordinator that allows any low-privilege user to escalate privileges to full administrative access, exposing lease visibility, pool…. A patch is available.

How to fix or mitigate CVE-2026-45223?

Within 24 hours: inventory all Crabbox coordinator instances and document current versions; notify relevant teams of patch requirement. Within 7 days: deploy Crabbox coordinator version 0.9.0 to all production and non-production instances; verify successful upgrades through version confirmation commands. Within 30 days: conduct access log review for the 90 days prior to patching to identify any suspicious admin-level operations from non-admin accounts; reset all low-privilege user API tokens as precautionary rotation.

Crabbox CVE-2026-45223

Q: What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-45223?

CVE-2026-45223 has a CVSS 4.0 base score of 7.7 (High). CVSS vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X. EPSS exploitation probability: 0.1%.

EUVD-2026-29197 HIGH

Authentication Bypass by Spoofing (CWE-290)

2026-05-11 VulnCheck

GHSA-27v8-7qqq-m35q

Authentication Bypass Openclaw Crabbox

7.7

CVSS 4.0 · Vendor: VulnCheck

Severity by source

Vendor (VulnCheck) PRIMARY

7.7 HIGH

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck) · only source for this CVE.

CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Lifecycle Timeline

Re-analysis Queued

May 11, 2026 - 19:22 vuln.today

cvss_changed

CVSS changed

May 11, 2026 - 19:22 NVD

8.8 (HIGH) 7.7 (HIGH)

Source Code Evidence Fetched

May 11, 2026 - 19:01 vuln.today

Analysis Generated

May 11, 2026 - 19:01 vuln.today

CVE Published

May 11, 2026 - 18:12 nvd

HIGH 8.8

DescriptionCVE.org

Crabbox before 0.9.0 contains an authentication bypass vulnerability in the coordinator user-token verification path where the verifyUserToken() function fails to reject payloads containing an admin claim, allowing attackers to escalate privileges. An attacker with access to the shared non-admin token can craft a user-token payload with admin: true, sign it using HMAC-SHA256, and present it to admin-only coordinator routes to gain full coordinator admin access including lease visibility, pool state management, and forced release operations.

AnalysisAI

Authentication bypass in Crabbox coordinator allows privilege escalation to full admin access. Attackers holding valid low-privilege user tokens can inject an admin claim into the token payload, sign it with HMAC-SHA256, and authenticate to admin-restricted coordinator endpoints. This grants unauthorized access to lease visibility across all users, pool state management, and forced release operations. Patch available in version 0.9.0 with upstream commit confirmed. No active exploitation (CISA KEV) or public POC identified at time of analysis, but CVSS 8.8 reflects network-accessible attack with low complexity once initial authentication is obtained.

Technical ContextAI

Crabbox is an infrastructure coordination service (cpe:2.3:a:openclaw:crabbox) that manages compute leases across multiple providers including E2B, Daytona, Islo, and Namespace. The vulnerability exists in the JWT-style user token verification logic within the coordinator component. CWE-290 (Authentication Bypass by Spoofing) indicates the verifyUserToken() function trusts client-controlled claims without proper validation. In JWT architectures, the standard security model requires the authorization server to be the sole issuer of sensitive claims like admin privileges. This implementation failed to reject or sanitize admin claims in user-supplied token payloads before HMAC-SHA256 signature verification, allowing horizontal privilege escalation. The shared secret used for HMAC signing is apparently accessible to authenticated users, enabling them to forge valid signatures for modified payloads. Affected routes include admin-only coordinator endpoints governing cross-tenant lease visibility, resource pool state mutations, and forced lease termination.

RemediationAI

Upgrade immediately to Crabbox version 0.9.0 or later, which includes the verified fix in commit 46079f6de7f10cf61bc47efebd0c143a41664898 (https://github.com/openclaw/crabbox/commit/46079f6de7f10cf61bc47efebd0c143a41664898). The patch modifies verifyUserToken() to explicitly reject caller-provided admin claims before granting coordinator access, per release notes at https://github.com/openclaw/crabbox/releases/tag/v0.9.0. If immediate upgrade is not feasible, implement network-level access controls restricting coordinator admin endpoints to trusted IP ranges or internal management networks only, though this mitigation does not address insider threats or compromised low-privilege accounts within the trusted perimeter. Rotate all coordinator HMAC signing secrets after patching to invalidate any attacker-forged tokens, though this requires coordination across all legitimate users and may cause service disruption. Audit coordinator access logs for anomalous admin operations from accounts that should not have admin privileges, particularly lease queries spanning multiple tenants, pool state changes, or forced release commands. The trade-off for pre-patch network restrictions is reduced operational flexibility for legitimate remote administration.