CVE-2023-45142

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

Published Oct 12, 2023 CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS 1.6% KEV · Not listed
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.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
EUVD EUVD EUVD-2023-2802 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.
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-rcjv-mgp8-qvmr OpenTelemetry-Go Contrib vulnerable to denial of service in otelhttp due to unbound cardinality metrics
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:openshift:4.17::el9
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:acm:2.10::el9