GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf — @opentelemetry/core
MEDIUMGHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-770 vulnerability in @opentelemetry/core. A fix is available for @opentelemetry/core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenTelemetry Core: Unbounded memory allocation in W3C Baggage propagation
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 GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf.
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
GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf 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 376,715 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
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
@opentelemetry/corenpmDescription
Overview
W3CBaggagePropagator.extract() in @opentelemetry/core does not enforce size limits when parsing inbound baggage HTTP headers. The W3C Baggage specification recommends a maximum of 8,192 bytes and 180 entries; these limits were only enforced on the outbound (inject()) path, not on the inbound (extract()) path. Parsing oversized baggage causes memory allocation proportional to the header size without any cap.
Impact
The practical availability impact for most Node.js deployments is limited. Node.js enforces a default --max-http-header-size of 16,384 bytes on the total combined size of all HTTP headers, constraining what an external attacker can deliver before the propagator is reached. Additionally, the header is already in memory (parsed by the HTTP layer) by the time it reaches the propagator - the additional allocation is the overhead of splitting into entry objects, not an unbounded read.
The risk is higher when transport-layer limits are absent - e.g., non-HTTP transports (messaging systems, custom TextMapGetter implementations) or deployments that have raised --max-http-header-size.
Remediation
Update @opentelemetry/core to version 2.8.0 or later. The fix enforces limits consistent with the W3C Baggage specification at the propagator level:
- Maximum total baggage size: 8,192 bytes
- Maximum number of entries: 180
- Maximum per-entry size: 4,096 bytes
Headers that exceed these limits are truncated at the point the limit is reached.
Workarounds
Ensure header size limits are configured at the server or gateway level. The default Node.js HTTP header limit (16 KB) mitigates external attack vectors independently of this fix. For non-HTTP transports receiving baggage from untrusted sources, validate input size before passing it to the propagator.
References
- W3C Baggage Specification - Limits
- opentelemetry-java: GHSA-rcgg-9c38-7xpx
- opentelemetry-go: GHSA-mh2q-q3fh-2475
Credit
Reported by tonghuaroot.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | @opentelemetry/core | all versions | 2.8.0npm install @opentelemetry/core@2.8.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for @opentelemetry/core, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update @opentelemetry/core to 2.8.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf 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 GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-8988-4f7v-96qf across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.