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No exploitation reportedFix available

CVE-2023-45142

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2023-10-12
  • Fixed in0.44.0
  • WeaknessCWE-770

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

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.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2023-10-1217:15CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 18:48 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2023-45142?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2023-45142?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD
Opentelemetry
BranchAffectedFixed in
0.44< 0.44.00.44.0

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Distribution builds and vendor advisories

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Vendor advisories

  • RHSA-2024:0041 Red Hat Product Security40 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.0 bug fix and security update

  • RHSA-2024:4118 Red Hat Product Security619 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: Red Hat Ceph Storage 5.3 security, bug fix, and enhancement update

  • RHSA-2024:2773 Red Hat Product Security4 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: OpenShift Container Platform 4.15.13 bug fix and security update

  • RHSA-2024:1859 Red Hat Product Security4 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP) 1.3.1 security and bug fix update

  • RHSA-2024:0766 Red Hat Product Security4 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: OpenShift Container Platform 4.15.0 security update

  • RHSA-2023:7198 Red Hat Product Security84 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: OpenShift Container Platform 4.15.0 bug fix and security update

10 more advisories

Full record on NVD

Fix

  1. Update Opentelemetry to 0.44.0
  2. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2024:0041 · 40 productsFor OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 see the following documentation, which will be updated shortly for this release, for important instructions on how to upgrade your cluster and fully apply this errata update: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.16/release_notes/ocp-4-16-release-not…
  3. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2024:4118 · 619 productsBefore applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied. For details on how to apply this update, refer to: https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258 For supported configurations, refer to: https://access.redhat.com/articles/1548993
  4. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2024:2773 · 4 productsFor OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 see the following documentation, which will be updated shortly for this release, for important instructions on how to upgrade your cluster and fully apply this asynchronous errata update: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.15/release_notes/o…
  5. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2024:1859 · 4 productsBefore applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied. For details on how to apply this update, refer to: https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258
  6. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2024:0766 · 4 productsSee the following documentation, which will be updated shortly for this release, for important instructions on how to upgrade your cluster and fully apply this asynchronous errata update: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.15/release_notes/ocp-4-15-release-notes.html Details on how t…
  7. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2024:0833 · 4 productsFor OpenShift Container Platform 4.12 see the following documentation, which will be updated shortly for this release, for important instructions on how to upgrade your cluster and fully apply this asynchronous errata update: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.12/release_notes/o…

Advisories and patches

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
none listed
PoC-in-GitHub

Sources

  • CNACVSS 3.17.5read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 3.17.5read 2026-10-23
  • CNAweakness (CWE)CWE-770read 2026-10-23
  • FIRST EPSSEPSS score1.6 %2026-10-22

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Published
2023-10-12
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-45142?

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.

Is CVE-2023-45142 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2023-45142 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 1.6% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-45142?

CVE-2023-45142 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

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