CVE-2023-25151 | DoS vulnerability for high cardinality metrics in opentelemetry-go-contrib

Exp

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.

Published: 2023-02-08 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-25151 is rated High Exploit Risk (65.6/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.97%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2023-25151

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-25151

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.47% 0.97% +0.50%
2 2026-02-18 0.38% 0.47% +0.09%
3 2026-02-14 — 0.38% —

Full EPSS history (12 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-25151

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-25151

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-25151

GHSA-5r5m-65gx-7vrh · Severity: high · Ecosystem: go — otelhttp and otelbeego have DoS vulnerability for high cardinality metrics

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-25151

vendor priority summary link
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-25151
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-25151 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (golang-opentelemetry-contrib), 8 status rows across 8 suites (focal, jammy, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, upstream): DNE 4, ignored 2, needs-triage 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-25151

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-25151

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linuxfoundation opentelemetry-go_contrib 0.38.0 cpe:2.3:a:linuxfoundation:opentelemetry-go_contrib:0.38.0:*:*:*:*:opentelemetry-go:*:*

References for CVE-2023-25151

cvelogic Threat Intelligence