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Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/openclaw-security-fears-lead-meta-other-ai-firms-to-restrict-its-use/ [arstechnica.com]

Last month, Jason Grad issued a late-night warning to the 20 employees at his tech startup. “You’ve likely seen Clawdbot trending on X/LinkedIn. While cool, it is currently unvetted and high-risk for our environment,” he wrote in a Slack message [linkedin.com] with a red siren emoji. “Please keep Clawdbot off all company hardware and away from work-linked accounts.”

Grad isn’t the only tech executive who has raised concerns to staff about the experimental agentic AI tool, which was briefly known as MoltBot [arstechnica.com] and is now named OpenClaw.
[...]
Peter Steinberger, OpenClaw’s solo founder, launched it as a free, open source tool [github.com] last November. But its popularity surged last month [wired.com] as other coders contributed features and began sharing their experiences using it on social media. Last week, Steinberger joined ChatGPT developer OpenAI, which says it will keep OpenClaw open source and support it through a foundation.
[...]
Some cybersecurity professionals have publicly [substack.com] urged [paloaltonetworks.com] companies to take measures to strictly control how their workforces use OpenClaw.
[...]
“Our policy is, ‘mitigate first, investigate second’ when we come across anything that could be harmful to our company, users, or clients,” says Grad, who is cofounder and CEO of Massive, which provides Internet proxy tools to millions of users and businesses. His warning to staff went out on January 26, before any of his employees had installed OpenClaw, he says.
[...]
Some companies concerned about OpenClaw are choosing to trust the cybersecurity protections they already have in place rather than introduce a formal or one-off ban. A CEO of a major software company says only about 15 programs are allowed on corporate devices. Anything else should be automatically blocked, says the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal security protocols.
[...]
Massive, the web proxy company, is cautiously exploring OpenClaw’s commercial possibilities. Grad says it tested the AI tool on isolated machines in the cloud and then, last week, released ClawPod [x.com], a way for OpenClaw agents to use Massive’s services to browse the web. While OpenClaw is still not welcome on Massive’s systems without protections in place, the allure of the new technology and its moneymaking potential was too great to ignore. OpenClaw “might be a glimpse into the future. That’s why we’re building for it,” Grad says.

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