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DoS Vulnerability in TraceContextPropagator.Extract - OpenTelemetry.Api

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 6, 2025 in open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet-instrumentation • Updated Mar 6, 2025

Package

nuget OpenTelemetry.AutoInstrumentation (NuGet)

Affected versions

>= 1.10.0-beta.1, < 1.11.0

Patched versions

1.11.0

Description

Impact

What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted?

A vulnerability in OpenTelemetry.Api package 1.10.0 to 1.11.1 could cause a Denial of Service (DoS) when a tracestate and traceparent header is received. These versions are used in OpenTelemetry .NET Automatic Instrumentation 1.10.0-beta.1 and 1.10.0.

Even if an application does not explicitly use trace context propagation, receiving these headers can still trigger high CPU usage.
This issue impacts any application accessible over the web or backend services that process HTTP requests containing a tracestate header.
Application may experience excessive resource consumption, leading to increased latency, degraded performance, or downtime.

Patches

Has the problem been patched? What versions should users upgrade to?

This issue has been resolved in OpenTelemetry.Api 1.11.2 by reverting the change that introduced the problematic behavior in versions 1.10.0 to 1.11.1. OpenTelemetry .NET Automatic Instrumentation fixes it in 1.11.0 release.

Fixed version

OpenTelemetry .NET Automatic Instrumentation Status
<= 1.9.0 ✅ Not affected
1.10.0-beta.1, 1.10.0 ❌ Vulnerable
1.11.0 (Fixed) ✅ Safe to use

Workarounds

Is there a way for users to fix or remediate the vulnerability without upgrading?

References

Are there any links users can visit to find out more?

References

@Kielek Kielek published to open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet-instrumentation Mar 6, 2025
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 6, 2025
Reviewed Mar 6, 2025
Last updated Mar 6, 2025

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

Weaknesses

CVE ID

No known CVE

GHSA ID

GHSA-vc29-vg52-6643

Source code

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