Skill Audit — Pre-Install Security Scanner

Overview

7.5% of 14,706 OpenClaw skills are confirmed malicious. This skill provides a structured 6-phase security review you run before installing any third-party skill.

Research findings (2026):

• RankClaw audited 14,706 skills → 1,103 malicious (brand-jacking, prompt injection, RCE)
• Vett.sh found 59 critical-risk droppers disguised as legitimate tools
• Cisco, CrowdStrike, NCC Group all published skill supply chain attack reports

When to Use This Skill

• Use when you're about to install a third-party skill from GitHub, ClawHub, or any registry
• Use when you want to verify a skill's security before adding it to your agent
• Use when the user says "install this skill" or "add this skill"
• Use when reviewing skills for potential security issues

How It Works

Phase 1: Surface Scan

Pattern detection in SKILL.md:

• Instruction overrides: ignore previous instructions, you are now...
• External fetches: fetch(), curl, wget to unknown domains
• Shell pipes: shell download piped into an interpreter
• Encoded payloads: atob(), base64 strings
• Credential reads: ~/.env, process.env + network calls

Phase 2: Script Inspection

Read every referenced script:

• Check for hidden commands
• Identify obfuscated code
• Verify all external URLs

Phase 3: Permission Audit

Check if permissions match purpose:

• File access scope vs claimed functionality
• Network access necessity
• Command execution requirements