CVE-2023-25151: linuxfoundation opentelemetry-go_contrib Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2023-25151 is a high (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in linuxfoundation opentelemetry-go_contrib. EPSS estimates a 0.97% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 61.6% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 08-02-2023
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 10-03-2025
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

opentelemetry-go-contrib is a collection of extensions for OpenTelemetry-Go. The v0.38.0 release of `go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp` uses the `httpconv.ServerRequest` function to annotate metric measurements for the `http.server.request_content_length`, `http.server.response_content_length`, and `http.server.duration` instruments. The `ServerRequest` function sets the `http.target` attribute value to be the whole request URI (including the query string)[^1]. The metric instruments do not "forget" previous measurement attributes when `cumulative` temporality is used, this means the cardinality of the measurements allocated is directly correlated with the unique URIs handled. If the query string is constantly random, this will result in a constant increase in memory allocation that can be used in a denial-of-service attack. This issue has been addressed in version 0.39.0. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this issue.

• CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource ConsumptionThe product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.