Browser control risks

Browser control risks

Enabling browser control gives the model a real browser. If that profile already has logged-in sessions, the model can access those accounts and data - treat browser profiles as sensitive state.

• Prefer a dedicated profile for the agent (the default openclaw profile); avoid your personal daily-driver profile.
• Keep host browser control disabled for sandboxed agents unless you trust them.
• The standalone loopback browser control API only honors shared-secret auth (gateway token bearer auth or gateway password) - it does not consume trusted-proxy or Tailscale Serve identity headers.
• Treat browser downloads as untrusted input; prefer an isolated downloads directory.
• Disable browser sync/password managers in the agent profile if possible.
• For remote gateways, "browser control" is equivalent to "operator access" to whatever that profile can reach.
• Keep Gateway and node hosts tailnet-only; avoid exposing browser control ports to LAN or public internet.
• Disable browser proxy routing when not needed (gateway.nodes.browser.mode="off").
• Chrome MCP existing-session mode is not "safer" - it can act as you in whatever that host Chrome profile can reach.
• Browser Relay Authentication v2 never sends the persistent extension relay key. The extension and external CDP clients verify a signed server challenge before returning a short-lived, one-time, connection-bound HMAC proof. Proofs bind the protocol version, role, transport, method, resource, flow, profile, and relay instance; replay on the same or another socket fails.
• browser.extensionRelay.allowLegacyAuth defaults to true for one migration window. This temporarily accepts old Bearer, Basic, and token-subprotocol relay clients. Update every relay client, then set it to false. V2 clients never downgrade after a failed proof or unsupported response.
• Chrome extension pairing stores its access mode in extension-owned Chrome storage, not Gateway config. All tabs exposes every eligible ordinary tab in that Chrome profile except session-paused tabs; Selected tabs uses the OpenClaw tab group as its ACL. Existing pairings migrate to Selected tabs, while new personal-browser pairings recommend All tabs. Incognito and internal Chrome pages remain excluded in either mode.
• Automatic Chrome extension setup uses an origin-locked native messaging manifest discovered from an exact unpacked extension path in Chrome profile metadata. The one-shot host accepts only a versioned request with a fresh nonce, caps input at 4 KiB, validates the Chrome-supplied origin, and returns only a locally owned pairing. It never transfers a remote Gateway key.
• Native-host manifests, launchers, and status output contain no pairing key. OpenClaw refuses symlinks, unsafe ownership/modes, wildcard origins, and foreign registrations using the same host name. Windows uses the manual pairing fallback until an executable native-host path is supported.
• Run a node host on the browser machine and let the Gateway proxy browser actions when the Gateway is remote from the browser (see Browser tool); treat node pairing like admin access, keep Gateway and node host on the same tailnet, and avoid exposing relay/control ports over LAN, public internet, or Tailscale Funnel.

Browser SSRF policy (strict by default)

Private/internal destinations stay blocked unless you explicitly opt in.

• Default: browser.ssrfPolicy.dangerouslyAllowPrivateNetwork unset, so private/internal/special-use destinations stay blocked. Legacy alias allowPrivateNetwork still accepted.
• Opt-in: set dangerouslyAllowPrivateNetwork: true to allow those destinations.
• browser.ssrfPolicy.blockedHostnames denies exact hosts and wildcard subdomains before DNS and any allow rule, including private-network exceptions. *.example.com does not block the apex example.com; add both to block the entire domain. An empty or absent list adds no denials. tools.web.fetch.ssrfPolicy.blockedHostnames provides the same policy for guarded fetches, including redirects.
• In strict mode, use wildcard-aware allowedHostnames entries for patterns like *.example.com and exact host exceptions, including otherwise-blocked names like localhost.
• Direct navigation requests are preflight checked. During the action and bounded post-action grace, guarded Playwright interactions (click, coordinate click, hover, drag, scroll, select, press, type, form fill, and evaluate) intercept policy-denied top-level and subframe document loads before HTTP request bytes, then best-effort re-check the final http(s) URL.
• Before each fresh managed Chrome launch, OpenClaw best-effort disables network prediction, suppressing Chromium's observed speculative preconnect for those denied loads. This is defense in depth, not a policy boundary: a browser reused across a control-service restart and other browser backends may not share the hardening. Page routing remains request-level interception, not a network firewall: redirect hops, a popup's first request, Service Worker traffic, page code that runs after the bounded guard window, and some background/subresource paths can bypass it. Final-URL checks remain detection/quarantine defense; complete prevention requires owner-side egress isolation or a policy-enforcing proxy.

{  browser: {    ssrfPolicy: {      dangerouslyAllowPrivateNetwork: false,      allowedHostnames: ["*.example.com", "example.com", "localhost"],    },  },}