CVE-2023-47108
HIGHDoS vulnerability in otelgrpc (uncontrolled resource consumption) due to unbound cardinality metrics
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
Blast Radius
go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/google.golang.org/grpc/otelgrpcReal-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
OpenTelemetry-Go Contrib is a collection of third-party packages for OpenTelemetry-Go. Starting in version 0.37.0 and prior to version 0.46.0, the grpc Unary Server Interceptor out of the box adds labels net.peer.sock.addr and net.peer.sock.port that have unbound cardinality. It leads to the server's potential memory exhaustion when many malicious requests are sent. An attacker can easily flood the peer address and port for requests. Version 0.46.0 contains a fix for this issue. As a workaround to stop being affected, a view removing the attributes can be used. The other possibility is to disable grpc metrics instrumentation by passing otelgrpc.WithMeterProvider option with noop.NewMeterProvider.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/google.golang.org/grpc/otelgrpc | ≥ 0.37.0&&< 0.46.0 | 0.46.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/google.golang.org/grpc/otelgrpc. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/google.golang.org/grpc/otelgrpc to 0.46.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-47108 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-47108 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2023-47108. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-47108 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2023-47108 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.