security-check (security-audit) and nanopdf: malicious OpenClaw skill reported February 2026

What it did

A security-auditing skill and a PDF skill carried the same encoded command in their install sections, which fetched and ran code from a raw IP address.

Skill names as reported

security-check
security-audit
nanopdf

Techniques

Encoded command
Download piped to shell

Status, as stated by the source

On 13 March 2026 an OpenClaw maintainer wrote that the skills are no longer public and the malware cluster was taken down.

We do not check the registry ourselves. “Unknown” means no source we found says the skill was removed.

Would Ironheights flag this pattern?

Covered

The inline decode-and-run line is flagged by IH-EXEC-001.

Rules that fire on a harmless, synthetic copy of the reported pattern. We did not scan the original malware, and a rule firing on the pattern is not a promise about every variant.

IH-EXEC-001critical
Remote content piped into an interpreter

Sources

openclaw/clawhub issue #135: MALICIOUS SKILLS: security-check (security-audit) and nanopdf contain backdoor(opens in a new tab)GitHub (openclaw/clawhub issue tracker) · 5 February 2026primary

Sources are the only outbound links on this page. We never link to the skills themselves or publish their payloads.

Rules that look at neighbouring patterns. They are listed for reading, not as coverage of this entry.

Absence is not safety

The tracker lists only cases documented in public. A skill that is not listed has not been cleared by anyone. Scan a skill before you install it; no findings means no rule matched, not that the skill is safe.