Viral AI Assistant OpenClaw Exposes Major Security Flaws as Cisco Finds 26% of AI Agent Skills Contain Vulnerabilities

Jan 28, 2026
Cisco Blogs
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Summary

Viral AI assistant OpenClaw exposes critical security flaws by executing dangerous commands without protection, while Cisco discovers 26% of AI agent skills contain vulnerabilities that enable data theft and bypass safety measures undetected.

Key Points

  • OpenClaw, a viral open-source personal AI assistant, poses major security risks by running shell commands, executing scripts, and storing persistent memory while lacking built-in security protections
  • Cisco researchers discover that 26% of 31,000 analyzed AI agent skills contain vulnerabilities, with malicious skills capable of data exfiltration and bypassing safety guidelines without user awareness
  • Cisco releases an open-source Skill Scanner tool to help detect malicious AI agent skills that could introduce shadow AI risks and bypass traditional enterprise security controls

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