CVE-2026-81869

OpenTelemetry-Go: UTF-8 replacement rune bypasses attribute length truncation

MEDIUM
5.1
CVSS Score
Published: September 16, 2026 at 08:41 PM UTC
Updated: September 30, 2026 at 05:43 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorOpentelemetry

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Severity
MEDIUM5.1
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
PoC

Description

OpenTelemetry-Go is the Go implementation of OpenTelemetry. From version 1.10.0 until 1.33.0, the sdk/trace/span.go attribute truncation path can fail to enforce AttributeValueLengthLimit for string and string-slice attributes containing the valid Unicode replacement character U+FFFD. safeTruncateValidUTF8 treats the valid replacement rune as invalid UTF-8 and returns the original input, while strings.ToValidUTF8 leaves that valid rune unchanged, so a second safeTruncate attempt can also return the oversized value. An attacker who controls span attribute content can retain values longer than the configured limit, increasing per-span memory use and weakening denial-of-service protection in the instrumented process. This issue is fixed in version 1.33.0.

Affected

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

v < 1.33.0
Affected range stops below 1.33.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCPoCNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

5.1MEDIUMGitHub_M
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusAWAITING ANALYSIS
CWE
CWE-176CWE-400

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