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Incident response

docs/security/incident-response.md

2026.7.12.9 KB
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1. Detection and triage

Security signals come from:

  • GitHub Security Advisories (GHSA) and private vulnerability reports.
  • Public GitHub issues/discussions when reports are not sensitive.
  • Automated signals: Dependabot, CodeQL, npm advisories, secret scanning.

Initial triage:

  1. Confirm affected component, version, and trust boundary impact.
  2. Classify as a security issue vs. hardening/no-action, using SECURITY.md's scope and out-of-scope rules.
  3. An incident owner responds accordingly.

2. Severity

SeverityDefinition
CriticalPackage/release/repository compromise, active exploitation, or unauthenticated trust-boundary bypass with high-impact control or data exposure.
HighVerified trust-boundary bypass requiring limited preconditions (for example, authenticated but unauthorized high-impact action), or exposure of OpenClaw-owned sensitive credentials.
MediumSignificant security weakness with practical impact but constrained exploitability or substantial prerequisites.
LowDefense-in-depth findings, narrowly scoped denial-of-service, or hardening/parity gaps without a demonstrated trust-boundary bypass.

3. Response

  1. Acknowledge receipt to the reporter (privately when sensitive).
  2. Reproduce on supported releases and latest main, then implement and validate a patch with regression coverage.
  3. Critical/high: prepare patched release(s) as fast as practical.
  4. Medium/low: patch in the normal release flow and document mitigation guidance.

4. Communication and disclosure

Communicate through GitHub Security Advisories in the affected repository, release notes/changelog entries for fixed versions, and direct reporter follow-up on status and resolution.

Critical/high incidents get coordinated disclosure, with CVE issuance when appropriate. Low-risk hardening findings may be documented in release notes or advisories without a CVE, depending on impact and user exposure.

5. Recovery and follow-up

After shipping the fix:

  1. Verify remediations in CI and release artifacts.
  2. Run a short post-incident review: timeline, root cause, detection gap, prevention plan.
  3. Add follow-up hardening/tests/docs tasks and track them to completion.