CVE-2026-39882 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-789 vulnerability in go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp. A fix is available for go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenTelemetry-Go OTLP HTTP exporters read unbounded HTTP response bodies
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2026-39882.
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.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-39882 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,238 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp🐹go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlpmetric/otlpmetrichttp🐹go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttpReal-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 is the Go implementation of OpenTelemetry. Prior to 1.43.0, the otlp HTTP exporters (traces/metrics/logs) read the full HTTP response body into an in-memory bytes.Buffer without a size cap. This is exploitable for memory exhaustion when the configured collector endpoint is attacker-controlled (or a network attacker can mitm the exporter connection). This vulnerability is fixed in 1.43.0.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp | all versions | 1.43.0go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp@v1.43.0 |
| 🐹Go | go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlpmetric/otlpmetrichttp | all versions | 1.43.0go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlpmetric/otlpmetrichttp@v1.43.0 |
| 🐹Go | go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttp | all versions | 0.19.0go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttp@v0.19.0 |
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/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp to 1.43.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-39882 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2026-39882 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-39882. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
This Important flaw in OpenTelemetry-Go's OTLP HTTP exporters can lead to a denial of service in Red Hat products, such as OpenShift Container Platform and Multicluster Engine for Kubernetes, that utilize OpenTelemetry-Go for telemetry collection. The vulnerability arises from the exporters reading HTTP response…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.22 | openshift4/ose-thanos-rhel9:1782977513 | RHSA-2026:37585 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.22 | openshift4/ose-thanos-rhel9:1786549880 | RHSA-2026:54770 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-39882 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-39882 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.