CWE-15: External Control of System or Configuration Setting

One or more system settings or configuration elements can be externally controlled by a user.

Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected, and potentially malicious ways.

Consequences

• Other: Varies by Context

How to prevent it

• Architecture and Design: Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
• Implementation, Architecture and Design: Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt at illustrating it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.
• Implementation, Architecture and Design: In general, do not allow user-provided or otherwise untrusted data to control sensitive values. The leverage that an attacker gains by controlling these values is not always immediately obvious, but do not underestimate the creativity of the attacker.

Recent advisories

• GHSA-96qj-4jj5-wcjc — Traefik: Gateway API TraefikService backend accepts rest@internal, allowing unauthorized exposure of the REST provider despite providers.rest.insecure=false
• GHSA-h2vw-ph2c-jvwf — OpenClaw: Workspace dotenv MiniMax host override could redirect credentialed requests
• GHSA-25qr-6mpr-f7qx — Rclone: Unauthenticated options/set allows runtime auth bypass, leading to sensitive operations and command execution
• GHSA-7wv4-cc7p-jhxc — OpenClaw: Workspace .env could inject OpenClaw runtime-control variables
• GHSA-vfw7-6rhc-6xxg — OpenClaw Has Incomplete Fix for CVE-2026-4039: CLI Backend Environment Variable Injection via Workspace Config
• GHSA-qcj9-wwgw-6gm8 — OpenClaw: Workspace `.env` can override the bundled plugin trust root
• GHSA-3qpv-xf3v-mm45 — OpenClaw: Workspace `.env` can override the bundled hooks root and load attacker hook code
• GHSA-8rh7-6779-cjqq — OpenClaw has a CWD `.env` environment variable injection which bypasses host-env policy and allows config takeover
• GHSA-39pp-xp36-q6mg — OpenClaw has Inconsistent Host Exec Environment Override Sanitization
• GHSA-j425-whc4-4jgc — OpenClaw's `system.run` env override filtering allowed dangerous helper-command pivots
• GHSA-xgf2-vxv2-rrmg — OpenClaw's shell startup env injection bypasses system.run allowlist intent (RCE class)
• GHSA-w9cg-v44m-4qv8 — OpenClaw affected by BASH_ENV / ENV startup-file injection into spawned shell commands
• GHSA-5h2c-8v84-qpvr — OpenClaw shell-env fallback trusted startup env and could execute attacker-influenced login-shell paths
• GHSA-8fmp-37rc-p5g7 — OpenClaw's config env vars allowed startup env injection into service runtime
• GHSA-vmqr-rc7x-3446 — OpenClaw's non-default safeBins sort configuration can bypass intended allowlist approval constraints

All advisories for CWE-15