OpenTelemetry-Go: BatchProcessor can busy-spin when export buffer is full
Priority MEDIUM 61CWE-400Published · Updated
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- Present
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · Low
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 1 fixed, 25 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA, GitHub and Red Hat. Impact type from CWE-400.
Summary
OpenTelemetry-Go is the Go implementation of OpenTelemetry. Prior to version 0.21.0, the go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log BatchingProcessor can enter a tight CPU loop when attacker-driven log emission fills its asynchronous export buffer while the exporter is backpressured. NewBatchingProcessor wraps the exporter with newBufferExporter(exporter, 1), and the poll loop calls queue.TryDequeue and bufferExporter.EnqueueExport before immediately signaling pollTrigger whenever the queue remains at or above batchSize. Because a failed nonblocking EnqueueExport leaves the queue length unchanged, the processor repeatedly retries without waiting for its ticker, exhausting CPU and degrading or denying service in the embedding process. This issue is fixed in version 0.21.0.
Why it matters now
Exploitation Proof of concept CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00383 32nd percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial opentelemetry-go (open-telemetry): 0.21.0go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log (Go): 0.21.0Red Hat: 12 advisoriesRed Hat: 1 fixed, 25 without a fix
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| open-telemetry | opentelemetry-go | before 0.21.0 | 0.21.0 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log (Go) | before 0.21.0 | 0.21.0 | Patch available | GHSA-hjf4-fphr-2h65 |
- opentelemetry-go Vendoropen-telemetry Affected before 0.21.0 Fixed in 0.21.0 Patch available CNA
- go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log (Go) Vendor— Affected before 0.21.0 Fixed in 0.21.0 Patch available GHSA-hjf4-fphr-2h65
CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1
Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.
| CPE | Versions | Role | Vendor |
|---|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:a:opentelemetry:opentelemetry:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | — | — | open-telemetry |
- cpe:2.3:a:opentelemetry:opentelemetry:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·open-telemetry
Remediation
- Fix · CNA opentelemetry-go (open-telemetry) Fixed in 0.21.0
- Fix · GHSA-hjf4-fphr-2h65 go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log (Go) Fixed in 0.21.0 Advisory →
Red Hat 12 advisories
- RHSA-2026:68926 Released 2026-09-18 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images grafana13.1-13.1.6-0.2.hum1@aarch64, grafana13.1-13.1.6-0.2.hum1@src, grafana13.1-13.1.6-0.2.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68910 Released 2026-09-18 · Red Hat rating ModerateRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images jaeger-2.20.0-0.9.hum1@aarch64, jaeger-2.20.0-0.9.hum1@src, jaeger-2.20.0-0.9.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68905 Released 2026-09-18 · Red Hat rating ModerateRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images opentofu1.12-1.12.6-0.3.hum1@aarch64, opentofu1.12-1.12.6-0.3.hum1@src, opentofu1.12-1.12.6-0.3.hum1@x86_64
Show 9 more Red Hat advisories
- RHSA-2026:68821 Released 2026-09-18 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images grafana12.4-12.4.10-0.6.hum1@aarch64, grafana12.4-12.4.10-0.6.hum1@src, grafana12.4-12.4.10-0.6.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68778 Released 2026-09-17 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images grafana13.2-13.2.1-0.5.hum1@aarch64, grafana13.2-13.2.1-0.5.hum1@src, grafana13.2-13.2.1-0.5.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68729 Released 2026-09-17 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images helm4-4.3.0-0.2.hum1@aarch64, helm4-4.3.0-0.2.hum1@src, helm4-4.3.0-0.2.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68717 Released 2026-09-17 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images helm3-3.22.0-0.2.hum1@aarch64, helm3-3.22.0-0.2.hum1@src, helm3-3.22.0-0.2.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68716 Released 2026-09-17 · Red Hat rating ModerateRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images distribution-3.1.1-0.2.hum1@aarch64, distribution-3.1.1-0.2.hum1@src, distribution-3.1.1-0.2.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68715 Released 2026-09-17 · Red Hat rating ModerateRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs Security Update
- Red Hat Hardened Images caddy-2.11.4-0.4.hum1@aarch64, caddy-2.11.4-0.4.hum1@src, caddy-2.11.4-0.4.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68591 Released 2026-09-17 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs bug fix and enhancement update
- Red Hat Hardened Images opentelemetry-collector-k8s-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@aarch64, opentelemetry-collector-k8s-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@src, opentelemetry-collector-k8s-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68290 Released 2026-09-16 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs bug fix and enhancement update
- Red Hat Hardened Images opentelemetry-collector-contrib-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@aarch64, opentelemetry-collector-contrib-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@src, opentelemetry-collector-contrib-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@x86_64
- RHSA-2026:68272 Released 2026-09-16 · Red Hat rating ImportantRed Hat Hardened Images RPMs bug fix and enhancement update
- Red Hat Hardened Images opentelemetry-collector-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@aarch64, opentelemetry-collector-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@src, opentelemetry-collector-0.161.0-0.1.hum1@x86_64
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Assisted Installer for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 2 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Logging Subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Multiarch Tuning Operator | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Multicluster Global Hub | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| OpenShift Developer Tools and Services | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| OpenShift Lightspeed | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 5 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 7 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 8 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Ceph Storage 9 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Connectivity Link 1 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Edge Manager 1 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift GitOps | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift distributed tracing 3 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 18.0 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | Fixed | RHSA-2026:68272, RHSA-2026:68290, RHSA-2026:68591, RHSA-2026:68715, RHSA-2026:68716, RHSA-2026:68717, RHSA-2026:68729, RHSA-2026:68778, RHSA-2026:68821, RHSA-2026:68905, RHSA-2026:68910, RHSA-2026:68926 |
Not affected: 1 product
- Red Hat Hardened Images
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-81872
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-hjf4-fphr-2h65
- 2026-10-30 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
Other 6
- https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/security/advisories/GHSA-hjf4-fphr-2h65
- https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/issues/6797
- https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/pull/8620
- https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/commit/ba71b09e6ed272e93a669aeaec1e98b1df4cc582
- https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/releases/tag/sdk/log/v0.21.0
- https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go
More open-telemetry vulnerabilities
- TI-2024-23957 OpenTelemetry Collector has a Denial of Service via Zip/Decompression Bomb sent over HTTP or gRPC CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.2
- TI-2026-42706 OpenTelemetry JavaScript: Denial of service in `JaegerPropagator` via unhandled exception on a malformed header CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-33428 OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation: Memcached payload length overflow can crash OBI CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-33427 OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation: MongoDB parser panics on malformed wire messages CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-33420 OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation: Postgres BIND parsing can panic on malformed payloads CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-32777 opentelemetry-js: Prometheus exporter process crash via malformed HTTP request CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
Sources
- CVE-2026-81872 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-81872 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-hjf4-fphr-2h65 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-81872 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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