CVE-2023-45142

OpenTelemetry-Go Contrib has DoS vulnerability in otelhttp due to unbound cardinality metrics

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: October 12, 2023 at 04:33 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 06:28 AM UTC
2 products affected across 1 vendorOpentelemetryOpentelemetry Go Contrib

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 2%

Description

OpenTelemetry-Go Contrib is a collection of third-party packages for OpenTelemetry-Go. A handler wrapper out of the box adds labels `http.user_agent` and `http.method` that have unbound cardinality. It leads to the server's potential memory exhaustion when many malicious requests are sent to it. HTTP header User-Agent or HTTP method for requests can be easily set by an attacker to be random and long. The library internally uses `httpconv.ServerRequest` that records every value for HTTP `method` and `User-Agent`. In order to be affected, a program has to use the `otelhttp.NewHandler` wrapper and not filter any unknown HTTP methods or User agents on the level of CDN, LB, previous middleware, etc. Version 0.44.0 fixed this issue when the values collected for attribute `http.request.method` were changed to be restricted to a set of well-known values and other high cardinality attributes were removed. As a workaround to stop being affected, `otelhttp.WithFilter()` can be used, but it requires manual careful configuration to not log certain requests entirely. For convenience and safe usage of this library, it should by default mark with the label `unknown` non-standard HTTP methods and User agents to show that such requests were made but do not increase cardinality. In case someone wants to stay with the current behavior, library API should allow to enable it.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 0.44.0
Affected range stops below 0.44.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
v < 0.44.0
Affected range stops below 0.44.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

CVSS

7.5HIGHGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-770

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