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CVE-2026-40891 — Vulnerability in...

MEDIUM

OpenTelemetry dotnet: Unbounded `grpc-status-details-bin` parsing in OTLP/gRPC retry handling

Published April 23, 2026Updated September 10, 2026Source: osv

Summary

### Summary When exporting telemetry over gRPC using the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP), the exporter may parse a server-provided `grpc-status-details-bin` trailer during retry handling. Prior to the fix, a malformed trailer could encode an extremely large length-delimited protobuf field which was used directly for allocation, allowing excessive memory allocation and potential denial of service (DoS). ### Details #5980 introduced a retry path that parses `grpc-status-details-bin` to extract gRPC retry delay information for retryable responses. On that path: - `OtlpGrpcExportClient` captures `grpc-status-details-bin` from retryable status responses (`ResourceExhausted` / `Unavailable`). - `OtlpRetry` invokes `GrpcStatusDeserializer.TryGetGrpcRetryDelay` using this untrusted trailer value. - `GrpcStatusDeserializer.DecodeBytes` decoded a protobuf varint length and allocated `new byte[length]` without validating the bounds against the remaining payload size. A malicious or compromised collector (or a MitM in weakly-protected deployments) could return a crafted `grpc-status-details-bin` payload that forces oversized allocation and memory exhaustion in the instrumented process. ### Impact If an OTLP/gRPC endpoint is attacker-controlled (or traffic is intercepted), a crafted retryable response can trigger large allocations during trailer parsing, which may exhaust memory and cause process instability/crash (availability impact / DoS). ### Mitigation The application's configured back-end/collector endpoint needs to behave maliciously. If the collector/back-end is a well-behaved implementation response bodies should not be excessively large if a request error occurs. ### Workarounds None known. ### Remediation [#7064](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/pull/7064) updates `GrpcStatusDeserializer` to validate decoded length-delimited field sizes before allocation by ensuring the requested length is sane and does not exceed the remaining payload. This causes malformed or truncated `grpc-status-details-bin` payloads to fail safely instead of attempting unbounded allocation.

Advisory Timeline

  • First published April 23, 2026 (172 days ago).
  • Last revised September 10, 2026 — 139 days after initial publication.

Remediation

Upgrade to the fixed version using your package manager.

NuGet
Update OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol to 1.15.3 or later
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol --version 1.15.3

After upgrading, run your dependency scanner again to confirm the vulnerability is resolved.

Affected Packages (1)

Affects 1 ecosystem: nuget (1).

PackageEcosystemAffectedFixed In
OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol
nuget
1.13.1, 1.14.0, 1.15.0, 1.15.1 (+1 more)1.15.3

Vulnerability Classification

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifiers for this vulnerability type.

CVSS Score Breakdown

What the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) 5.3 score means for each attack dimension.

Attack Vector
Adjacent
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2026-40891?
OpenTelemetry dotnet: Unbounded `grpc-status-details-bin` parsing in OTLP/gRPC retry handling This vulnerability has been assigned a severity rating of MEDIUM (CVSS score: 5.3/10).
How do I check if my project is affected by CVE-2026-40891?
CVE-2026-40891 affects OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol. Use GeekWala's free vulnerability scanner to check your dependencies against CVE-2026-40891 and 200,000+ other known vulnerabilities.

Severity & Exploitability

CVSS Score
5.3

Exploitation requires specific conditions or has limited impact. Remediate within weeks.

Also Known As

GHSA-mr8r-92fq-pj8p

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