Best possible solution:

Continue review on #77527 and #77492 as the canonical narrow fixes, then keep the umbrella issue open for any remaining failed-auth alerting policy.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

Yes. Source inspection on current main shows bootstrap-token and device-signature verification happening before the new limiter scopes, and the canonical linked PRs include concrete PoC-style reproduction details.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

No. This branch is a plausible partial fix, but the narrower canonical PRs already track the same surfaces with more complete proof and should be the review targets.

Security review:

Security review cleared: The diff is security-sensitive but narrow and does not introduce a concrete supply-chain, secrets, workflow, dependency, or privilege regression.

What I checked:

• PR diff overlaps bootstrap-token canonical fix: The diff adds AUTH_RATE_LIMIT_SCOPE_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN, checks it before verifyBootstrapToken, records bootstrap-token failures, and resets on success, matching the open bootstrap-token rate-limit PR. (src/gateway/server/ws-connection/auth-context.ts:159, 5fe5e8c454ec)
• PR diff overlaps device-signature canonical fix: The diff adds a device-signature rate-limit scope and blocks repeated invalid device signatures before running resolveDeviceSignaturePayloadVersion. (src/gateway/server/ws-connection/message-handler.ts:770, 5fe5e8c454ec)
• Current main still has the vulnerable source path: On current main, bootstrap-token verification runs before any bootstrap-specific limiter and device-signature verification runs before the auth decision limiter. (src/gateway/server/ws-connection/auth-context.ts:160, 7dc6007aeea2)
• Canonical bootstrap-token PR is already open: fix(gateway): rate-limit pre-auth bootstrap-token verify to prevent mutex DoS #77527 is open and specifically tracks rate-limiting pre-auth bootstrap-token verification, with reproduction details and targeted tests for the same verifyBootstrapToken gate.
• Canonical device-signature PR is already open: security fix(gateway): defend pre-auth device-signature verify against CPU DoS #77492 is open and specifically tracks the pre-auth device-signature CPU DoS path, including the same rate-limit scope plus additional schema/shape hardening and PoC proof.
• Umbrella issue already points to the per-surface fixes: The linked umbrella issue identifies fix(gateway): rate-limit pre-auth bootstrap-token verify to prevent mutex DoS #77527 and security fix(gateway): defend pre-auth device-signature verify against CPU DoS #77492 as the per-surface fix PRs, so this combined branch is not the canonical remaining work.

Likely related people:

• Shakker: Current-main blame attributes the relevant auth-context, message-handler, auth-rate-limit, and device-bootstrap code in this checkout to commit 0720c1f. (role: introduced current gateway auth path; confidence: medium; commits: 0720c1f77d; files: src/gateway/server/ws-connection/auth-context.ts, src/gateway/server/ws-connection/message-handler.ts, src/gateway/auth-rate-limit.ts)
• @openclaw/openclaw-secops: CODEOWNERS routes gateway auth files to the secops team, and this PR changes pre-auth gateway authentication behavior. (role: security reviewer; confidence: high; files: .github/CODEOWNERS, src/gateway/server/ws-connection/auth-context.ts, src/gateway/server/ws-connection/message-handler.ts)
• fede-kamel: Authored the already-open per-surface PRs fix(gateway): rate-limit pre-auth bootstrap-token verify to prevent mutex DoS #77527 and security fix(gateway): defend pre-auth device-signature verify against CPU DoS #77492 with detailed reproduction and validation for the same bootstrap-token and device-signature rate-limit surfaces. (role: canonical fix proposer; confidence: medium; files: src/gateway/server/ws-connection/auth-context.ts, src/gateway/server/ws-connection/message-handler.ts, src/gateway/auth-rate-limit.ts)
• Jacob Tomlinson: Recent history shows adjacent paired-device and gateway role/scope approval work in commits touching the same device-pairing security area. (role: adjacent gateway device-pairing maintainer; confidence: low; commits: 4d7cc6bb4f, 4ee4960de2, d3d8e316bd; files: src/gateway/server/ws-connection/message-handler.ts, src/infra/device-pairing.ts)

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 7dc6007aeea2.