China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a warning about OpenClaw, a popular open-source AI agent, citing potential security risks from misconfigurations that could lead to cyberattacks or data breaches. The ministry advised organizations to audit public network exposure, strengthen identity authentication, and enforce access controls.
OpenClaw has rapidly gained global traction since its November release, receiving over 100,000 stars on GitHub and attracting two million visitors in a single week. Its popularity is rising among Chinese technology users, with major cloud providers including Alibaba’s Alicloud, Tencent Cloud, and Baidu offering hosting solutions for OpenClaw deployments.
The AI agent recently gained attention after Moltbook, a social network designed for OpenClaw bots, exposed private data on thousands of users due to security flaws, according to cybersecurity firm Wiz. While the warning does not constitute a ban, authorities emphasized the importance of proper security measures for safe AI deployment.
