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HIGH severity

CVE-2022-21698 — client_golang

HIGHFix: prometheus/client_golang#962

CVE-2022-21698 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in github.com/prometheus/client_golang. A fix is available for github.com/prometheus/client_golang — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in promhttp

Also known asGHSA-cg3q-j54f-5p7pGO-2022-0322
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Oct 10, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
  • CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-21698.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
6.0%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs93th percentile — riskier than 93% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%2.57%5.14%7.71%0.3%6.0%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2022-21698 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected
🐹github.com/prometheus/client_golang

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

This is the Go client library for Prometheus. It has two separate parts, one for instrumenting application code, and one for creating clients that talk to the Prometheus HTTP API. client_golang is the instrumentation library for Go applications in Prometheus, and the promhttp package in client_golang provides tooling around HTTP servers and clients.

Impact

HTTP server susceptible to a Denial of Service through unbounded cardinality, and potential memory exhaustion, when handling requests with non-standard HTTP methods.

Affected Configuration

In order to be affected, an instrumented software must

  • Use any of promhttp.InstrumentHandler* middleware except RequestsInFlight.
  • Do not filter any specific methods (e.g GET) before middleware.
  • Pass metric with method label name to our middleware.
  • Not have any firewall/LB/proxy that filters away requests with unknown method.

Patches

Workarounds

If you cannot upgrade to v1.11.1 or above, in order to stop being affected you can:

  • Remove method label name from counter/gauge you use in the InstrumentHandler.
  • Turn off affected promhttp handlers.
  • Add custom middleware before promhttp handler that will sanitize the request method given by Go http.Request.
  • Use a reverse proxy or web application firewall, configured to only allow a limited set of methods.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐹Gogithub.com/prometheus/client_golangall versions1.11.1go get github.com/prometheus/client_golang@v1.11.1

Affected Products

4 products · 10 configurations
Application
extra packages for enterprise linuxfedoraproject
2 versions
7.08.0
OS
fedorafedoraproject
4 versions
34353637
Application
client golangprometheus
< 1.11.1
range
Application
rdordo_project
all

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/prometheus/client_golang, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update github.com/prometheus/client_golang to 1.11.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-21698 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatModerate

This flaw has been rated as having a moderate impact for two main reasons. The opportunity for a Denial of Service is limited to the golang runtime. In the case of OpenShift Container Platform, this would be restricted within each individual container. Additionally, this is in alignment with upstream's (the Prometheus…

ProductFixed inAdvisory
Logging subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift 5.4openshift-logging/elasticsearch-proxy-rhel8:v1.0.0-163RHSA-2022:1461
Logging subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift 5.4openshift-logging/elasticsearch-rhel8-operator:v5.4.1-4RHSA-2022:2216
OADP-1.0-RHEL-8oadp/oadp-registry-rhel8:1.0.4-6RHSA-2022:6430
OADP-1.0-RHEL-8oadp/oadp-mustgather-rhel8:1.0.5-20RHSA-2022:7261
OADP-1.1-RHEL-8oadp/oadp-velero-plugin-rhel8:1.1.0-20RHSA-2022:6290
OADP-1.1-RHEL-8oadp/oadp-velero-rhel8:1.1.6-7RHSA-2023:5314
OpenShift Logging 5.2openshift-logging/elasticsearch-proxy-rhel8:v1.0.0-168RHSA-2022:2218
OpenShift Logging 5.3openshift-logging/elasticsearch-proxy-rhel8:v1.0.0-171RHSA-2022:2217

Frequently Asked Questions

This is the Go client library for Prometheus. It has two separate parts, one for instrumenting application code, and one for creating clients that talk to the Prometheus HTTP API. client_golang is the instrumentation library for Go applications in Prometheus, and the promhttp package in client_golang provides tooling around HTTP servers and clients. ### Impact HTTP server susceptible to a Denial of Service through unbounded cardinality, and potential memory exhaustion, when handling requests with non-standard HTTP methods. ### Affected Configuration In order to be affected, an instrumente
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2022-21698: client_golang DoS — Fixed in 1.11.1