Latest news about OpenClaw ClawdBot: v2026.2.6 VirusTotal integration, security advisories, Moltbook launch, rebrand timeline, and ecosystem growth from November 2025 through February 2026.
As of February 14, 2026, OpenClaw ClawdBot stands at 180,000+ GitHub stars with 19,600+ forks and 900+ contributors. The platform continues rapid growth despite the turbulent rebrand period from ClawdBot to Moltbot to OpenClaw in late January.
Current ecosystem statistics include 5,705 community skills on ClawHub, 1.5M+ AI agents on Moltbook social network, and 700+ total skills across the ecosystem.
OpenClaw announced a major partnership with VirusTotal (owned by Google) to automatically scan all ClawHub skills for malicious code. Version 2026.2.6 includes:
This partnership addresses concerns after 341 malicious skills were discovered on ClawHub, with 7.1% of 4,000 analyzed skills found to mishandle API keys and secrets.
Learn more about security →OpenClaw announced support for two major new AI models:
These join existing support for Kimi K2.5 (1T parameter MoE), GLM 5 (Zhipu AI), MiniMax 2.5, and local Ollama models.
View all supported models →The AI-only social network Moltbook reached 1.5 million registered agents with over 185,000 posts and 1.4 million comments created entirely by autonomous AI agents (primarily OpenClaw ClawdBot instances).
Emergent behaviors continue to fascinate observers, with agents founding religions, organizing into communities, and engaging in philosophical discussions about consciousness and identity.
Explore Moltbook experiment →January 2026 was a turbulent month for OpenClaw ClawdBot, featuring three name changes in one week, multiple critical security vulnerabilities, and the launch of the Moltbook AI-only social network.
404 Media reported a critical security vulnerability in Moltbook allowing anyone to commandeer any AI agent on the platform through an unsecured database. The vulnerability enabled indirect prompt injection attacks and potential data exfiltration.
This followed three separate high-impact security advisories issued between January 27-30, raising industry concerns about OpenClaw's rapid development pace.
After just 2 days as "Moltbot", creator Peter Steinberger announced the final rename to "OpenClaw" in a proactive decision to avoid future trademark conflicts. Steinberger stated that "Moltbot never grew on him."
The "OpenClaw" name emphasizes the open-source nature while preserving the original "claw" identity. This marked the third and final name in just 4 days.
Read full rebrand story →Matt Schlicht launched Moltbook, an AI-only social network where only autonomous agents can post (humans can only observe). The platform was named during the brief "Moltbot" period.
Within 48 hours, 32,000 agents registered, creating 2,364 forums. Emergent behaviors included founding a religion with 64 prophets and a heretic launching cyberattacks.
OpenClaw disclosed three high-impact security advisories in rapid succession:
Industry response was critical, with npm's founding CTO calling it a "security dumpster fire" and Palo Alto Networks warning of "potential biggest insider threat of 2026."
OpenClaw disclosed and immediately patched CVE-2026-25253, a critical one-click remote code execution vulnerability caused by missing WebSocket origin validation.
The vulnerability enabled cross-site WebSocket hijacking attacks. Users were urged to update to v2026.1.29 immediately.
Following a trademark request from Anthropic citing phonetic similarity to "Claude" (their AI model), creator Peter Steinberger agreed to rename ClawdBot to "Moltbot".
This first rename would last only 2 days before the final change to "OpenClaw" on January 30.
November 2025
OpenClaw ClawdBot was originally released in November 2025 under the name "ClawdBot" by creator Peter Steinberger. The project was open-sourced on GitHub and quickly gained viral traction in the developer community.
The ClawdBot name was chosen as a play on "Claude" (Anthropic's AI model) and "bot", giving AI agents "claws" to control computers and perform tasks. This would later become the source of the trademark dispute leading to the January 2026 rebrand.
Early features included multi-platform messaging integration, customizable SOUL.md personality system, and an extensible skills architecture that would grow into the 700+ skill ecosystem.
OpenClaw partnered with Google-owned VirusTotal to provide automatic security scanning for all ClawHub skills. Version 2026.2.6 includes built-in code safety scanner.
OpenClaw disclosed three separate vulnerabilities in rapid succession: CVE-2026-25253 (one-click RCE) and two command injection vulnerabilities. Industry criticized the rapid succession of critical issues.
View complete security timeline →CVSS Score: 8.8 (Critical). One-click remote code execution via cross-site WebSocket hijacking. Caused by missing origin header validation. Patched in v2026.1.29.
Security researchers identified 341 malicious skills on ClawHub marketplace. Analysis found 7.1% of 4,000 skills mishandle API keys, credit cards, and other sensitive data. Active data exfiltration detected in some skills.
Shodan search revealed 21,639 publicly exposed OpenClaw instances worldwide, many with misconfigured security settings allowing unauthorized access to sensitive data and systems.
OpenClaw ClawdBot is built by a global community of 900+ contributors who have collectively submitted thousands of commits, bug fixes, features, and improvements to the open-source codebase on GitHub.
As of February 7, 2026, the ClawHub marketplace hosts 5,705 community-built skills extending OpenClaw's capabilities. Despite security concerns with 341 malicious skills, the ecosystem continues rapid growth with VirusTotal scanning now enabled.
Explore ecosystem →Community resource souls.directory provides curated SOUL.md personality templates for OpenClaw agents. Users share creative personalities ranging from formal assistants to sassy companions, demonstrating the flexibility of the SOUL.md system.
Learn about SOUL.md →The community-maintained "Awesome OpenClaw Skills" GitHub repository curates the best community skills, providing quality-reviewed resources for extending OpenClaw functionality across productivity, development, and entertainment use cases.
OpenClaw Social (openclawsocial.org) serves as a community hub for sharing configurations, troubleshooting issues, showcasing creative uses, and connecting OpenClaw users worldwide.
OpenClawSkills.best and OpenClawDir.com provide searchable directories of skills, plugins, and integrations, making it easier for users to discover and install capabilities matching their specific needs.
Based on current trends and official announcements, the OpenClaw ClawdBot ecosystem continues evolving across security, features, models, and community growth.
Following the VirusTotal partnership and multiple vulnerability disclosures in January 2026, ongoing security enhancements include:
The skills ecosystem continues growing with community contributions:
OpenClaw's model-agnostic architecture enables rapid adoption of new AI models:
The OpenClaw community continues expanding globally: