datadog-opentelemetry has unbounded W3C tracestate parsing that may lead to DoSGHSA-gpwf-4h98-v82q
HIGHFix: DataDog/dd-trace-rs#218GHSA-gpwf-4h98-v82q is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in datadog-opentelemetry. A fix is available for datadog-opentelemetry — see the affected versions and patch details below.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-gpwf-4h98-v82q by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,987 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
datadog-opentelemetryReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
Datadog tracing libraries that implement W3C Trace Context (tracecontext) propagation parse the incoming tracestate header without enforcing a size cap on the Datadog vendor entry (dd=...). The dd= value contains semicolon-separated key:value pairs, and the parser allocates a hash-map entry for each pair. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send a tracestate header whose dd= member is arbitrarily large (or contains an arbitrarily large number of pairs), forcing unbounded CPU and memory consumption per request and enabling a remote Denial of Service. tracecontext extraction is enabled by default in affected tracers, so any internet-facing service instrumented with an affected version is exposed unless tracecontext has been explicitly removed from the propagation style configuration.
Patches
This is resolved in version 0.3.3 and later of the dd-trace-rs library.
Workarounds
If you cannot upgrade immediately:
- Disable
tracecontextextraction by settingDD_TRACE_PROPAGATION_STYLE_EXTRACTto a value that does not includetracecontext(for example,datadog). - Cap the maximum HTTP request header size at an upstream proxy or web server.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | datadog-opentelemetry | ≥ 0.1.0&&< 0.3.3 | 0.3.3cargo update -p datadog-opentelemetry --precise 0.3.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for datadog-opentelemetry, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update datadog-opentelemetry to 0.3.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-gpwf-4h98-v82q is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-gpwf-4h98-v82q in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.