T09 · Insecure Skill Coding Practices
- Location
SKILL.md:22- Finding
Persistent Storage of Sensitive Personal Profiles Without Defined Data-at-Rest Protections
- Content
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Vulnerability Details
File Location:
SKILL.md, lines 22-28
Vulnerability Type: Persistent storage of sensitive personal data without defined encryption, access control, retention, or deletion safeguards
Risk Level: MediumEvidence
markdown ## File Locations - Identity document: `~/.openclaw/data/second-me/SOUL.md` - Interview progress: `~/.openclaw/data/second-me/progress.json` - Conversation logs: `~/.openclaw/data/second-me/sessions/` On first run, check if `~/.openclaw/data/second-me/SOUL.md` exists. If it does, read it and enter **Evolve Mode**. If not, enter **Onboarding Mode**.The stored profile is designed to include sensitive identity, employment, behavioral, relationship, health, and workplace information. Relevant collection instructions include:
markdown Goal: Name, age, location, current job/role, company, team size.markdown Goal: Relationship with manager, team politics, how they handle credit/blame, their position in the org hierarchy.markdown Goal: Health, relationships, hobbies, energy management, work-life balance attitude.Technical Analysis
The skill directs the agent to persist a concentrated personal profile in
SOUL.md, maintain interview state inprogress.json, and retain conversation logs under a sessions directory. These artifacts can contain personally identifiable information, employment details, workplace conflicts, behavioral characteristics, health-related information, and relationship information.No encryption-at-rest requirement, restrictive filesystem permission requirement, retention period, data-minimization rule for session logs, secure deletion process, or explicit consent checkpoint is defined. The skill's identity-protection instructions restrict what the agent should disclose conversationally, but they do not protect the underlying files from other local processes, users with filesystem access, backups, or ...[truncated 1823 chars]
- Remediation
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Remediation Suggestions
- Obtain explicit, informed consent before persisting personal data, with separate opt-in consent for health, relationship, and workplace-politics information.
- Do not retain raw conversation logs by default. Store only the minimum user-approved summary required for the digital-twin functionality.
- Encrypt sensitive profile and session data at rest using keys protected by the host platform's credential or key-management facility.
- Require owner-only filesystem permissions for the data directory and newly created files, and reject operation if secure permissions cannot be established.
- Add configurable retention limits and automatically remove expired session records.
- Provide user-facing commands to inspect, export, redact, and securely delete the profile, progress state, and all session logs.
- Show proposed profile changes and obtain confirmation before writing them during both onboarding and evolve modes.
- Separate highly sensitive information from the general identity profile and avoid collecting it unless it is strictly necessary for an explicitly requested feature.
- Document the local threat model, backup implications, data lifecycle, and which other agents or skills may access the storage location.
