GHSA-rcjv-mgp8-qvmr

    Dashboard / Vulnerabilities / GHSA-rcjv-mgp8-qvmr

    GHSA-rcjv-mgp8-qvmr

    Published: 16 Oct 2023Last Modified: 10 Sept 2026

    Summary: OpenTelemetry-Go Contrib vulnerable to denial of service in otelhttp due to unbound cardinality metrics

    Details: ### Summary This handler wrapper https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib/blob/5f7e6ad5a49b45df45f61a1deb29d7f1158032df/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp/handler.go#L63-L65 out of the box adds labels - `http.user_agent` - `http.method` that have unbound cardinality. It leads to the server's potential memory exhaustion when many malicious requests are sent to it. ### Details 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](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/blob/v1.12.0/semconv/internal/v2/http.go#L159) that records every value for HTTP [method](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/blob/38e1b499c3da3107694ad2660b3888eee9c8b896/semconv/internal/v2/http.go#L204) and [User-Agent](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/blob/38e1b499c3da3107694ad2660b3888eee9c8b896/semconv/internal/v2/http.go#L223). ### PoC Send many requests with long randomly generated HTTP methods or/and User agents (e.g. a million) and observe how memory consumption increases during it. ### Impact In order to be affected, the program has to configure a metrics pipeline, use [otelhttp.NewHandler](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib/blob/5f7e6ad5a49b45df45f61a1deb29d7f1158032df/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp/handler.go#L63-L65) wrapper, and does not filter any unknown HTTP methods or User agents on the level of CDN, LB, previous middleware, etc. ### Others It is similar to already reported vulnerabilities - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib/security/advisories/GHSA-5r5m-65gx-7vrh ([open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib)) - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-cg3q-j54f-5p7p ([prometheus/client_golang](https://github.com/prometheus/client_golang)) ### Workaround for affected versions As a workaround to stop being affected [otelhttp.WithFilter()](https://pkg.go.dev/go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp/filters) 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. The other possibility is to disable HTTP metrics instrumentation by passing [`otelhttp.WithMeterProvider`](https://pkg.go.dev/go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp#WithMeterProvider) option with [`noop.NewMeterProvider`](https://pkg.go.dev/go.opentelemetry.io/otel/metric/noop#NewMeterProvider). ### Solution provided by upgrading In PR https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib/pull/4277, released with package version 0.44.0, 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. ### References - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib/pull/4277 - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go-contrib/releases/tag/v1.19.0

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp

    Purl: pkg:golang/go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp

    Affected ranges

    Type: SEMVER

    Events:

    Introduced- 0
    Fixed -0.44.0

    Affected versions

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High
    GHSA-rcjv-mgp8-qvmr | CVE-DB