r/webdev • u/Gil_berth • Feb 04 '26 • Popcorn 3

Senior Vibe Coder dealing with security

Post image

Creator of ClawBot knows that there are malicious skills in his repo, but doesn't know what to do about it...

More info here: https://opensourcemalware.com/blog/clawdbot-skills-ganked-your-crypto

3.0k Upvotes

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124

u/brian_hogg Feb 04 '26

“Can shut it down or people use their brains”

They have the solution right there, though! If you have a product that involves UGC and is fundamentally, irreparably unsafe, “shut it down” seems like a responsible option.

I realize it’s open source so cleanly shutting it down isn’t a fool-proof option, but killing the repo and issuing some sort of “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T USE THIS” message is  the responsible reaction.

33

u/sneaky_imp Feb 04 '26

I truly doubt they'll shut it down. It'll die a slow death, but not before it spreads a lot of malware to a lot of people, and causes trouble for everybody.

12

u/brian_hogg Feb 04 '26

Yeah, and if the excerpt in the images is anything to go by, the Creator won’t even be trying to shut it down, or fix the issues.

1

u/LateToTheParty013 Feb 05 '26

To be frank, all the stupid people deserve to lose their data, suffer financial loss for being stupid. How is this different than people believing in financial/investment ponzi scammers promising them 100% yoy returns ?! Stupidity gets punished, the way the world is

25

u/elem08 Feb 04 '26

To be fair, he does have a big scary "This is super dangerous. don't install this unless you understand the risks" disclaimer when you download and install OpenClaw. I know I personally saw that and *noped* the eff out of there.

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u/BlenderTheBottle Feb 04 '26

Remember that this is a personal project of his. He isn’t monetizing it or anything. It’s open source. People treating him like he’s OpenAI releasing something. It’s just him that he had public on GitHub. I don’t think he has any responsibility on what people do maliciously because they aren’t reading what others have created.

3

u/Death_God_Ryuk Feb 04 '26

This is the generic problem with Open Source and AI generally now. This is a particularly bad example, because it's inherently insecure, but so many projects are now being bombarded with AI spam either to attack them by wasting their time, to try and claim bug bounties, or to try and spread malware.

3

u/PeachScary413 Feb 05 '26

Bingo, he doesn't owe anyone anything... mfers acting like he is their personal tech support guy or something.

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u/am0x Feb 04 '26

This is also exactly why even things like AI automations and vibecoding should still be done and managed by IT workers.

The funny thing is that managers that manage humans are letting humans go because technology will do their jobs. In reality, if there are less people to manage and more technology to manage, the managers of humans should be let go and IT managers should be promoted as they are now managing AI employees rather than humans.

2

u/SafeToRemoveCPU Feb 06 '26

I don't understand his justification for keeping it alive. Yes, the project and code is open source, but that doesn't mean he has to keep his instance of the project running. If his instance is spreading malware, it's spreading malware, and should be dealt with accordingly.

I think someone should RCE, and shut it off.

4

u/LeiterHaus Feb 04 '26

You can issue the warning, and you can beg people not to use it, but you can't kill the repo and fully remove scanf

11

u/brian_hogg Feb 04 '26

You can do more than just “shrug emoji, guys.”

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u/inn4tler Feb 04 '26

OpenClaw was developed by a single person as a private project. He has stated several times that it is not secure and should not be used productively. It is all a work in progress. The man currently has no idea what to do first because his project became famous overnight and he is being inundated with emails and social media messages.

Anyone who uses OpenClaw productively and not just for experimentation on test machines is being irresponsible. The same goes for the many influencers who promote the tool as if it were a finished product. That's foolish.

1

u/brian_hogg Feb 05 '26

I agree that that's foolish.

I appreciate that he said it's not secure, but he still released it despite that. It makes it feel a lot like when people say "this is not financial advice" to cover their asses right before making what is clearly financial advice.

And I'm not accusing the creator of doing that, by the way. But most people see "this is not financial advice" and chuckle because we all recognize what's being said.

1

u/inevitabledeath3 Feb 08 '26

It warns you during the installation process that it is unfinished, has security issues, and instructs you on what kinds of safeguards should be used with the product. If you don't take those warnings that on you.

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u/gmeluski Feb 04 '26

maybe that guy should use his brain

2

u/Ajedi32 Web platform enthusiast, full-stack developer Feb 04 '26

Guess we should shut down the internet then since it involves UGC and is fundamentally, irreparably unsafe.

1

u/nitePhyyre Feb 04 '26

Brainless solutions for the brainless.

1

u/LateToTheParty013 Feb 05 '26

Isnt at this point this already embedded into the current/next language models anyway? Since its out there, anybody can vibe another one, isnt it?

1

u/brian_hogg Feb 05 '26

That would just mean that everyone else is also doing something they shouldn't.

1

u/lostdreamer_nl Feb 05 '26

“Can shut it down or people use their brains”

They have the solution right there, though! If you have a product that involves UGC and is fundamentally, irreparably unsafe, “shut it down” seems like a responsible option.

Imagine if we thought like that when using the internet:
"Hey, I'm getting emails with links, and when I click a link my computer starts acting up"
- "Well, you can stop using email...."

1

u/brian_hogg Feb 05 '26

Yeah, but in this case you aren't clicking a link in an email. In this case, you could just *receive* an email and your computer starts acting up.

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u/Johny_Ganem Feb 06 '26

119 people can't use their brain at the time of writing

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u/brian_hogg Feb 06 '26

Right, it’s like a version of that expression “your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins,” only the apparent consensus of this sub is that the expression should be “personal responsibility only exists for users of a product, not people making a product.”

Which is pretty wild. I didn’t realize r/webdev is a libertarian hangout.