GHSA-r6c9-g6q5-qrf9MediumCVSS 5.9

OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation: CPU-mismatch fallback uses 256-byte buffer with 8KB size

Published
May 18, 2026
Last Modified
May 18, 2026

🔗 CVE IDs covered (1)

📋 Description

### Summary The per-CPU message-buffer fallback path uses a 256-byte backup buffer but preserves the original payload size, which can be up to 8KB. If a CPU mismatch occurs, OBI can read beyond the fallback buffer and leak adjacent memory into telemetry. ### Details https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-instrumentation/blob/032473449b53d9f02ec4619d4f5b84e6a81db362/bpf/common/http_buf_size.h#L4-L7 `k_kprobes_http2_buf_size` is defined as 256 bytes, the size of the fallback buffer. https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-instrumentation/blob/032473449b53d9f02ec4619d4f5b84e6a81db362/bpf/common/msg_buffer.h#L12-L36 Introduces 8KB per-CPU buffer and 256-byte `fallback_buf` in `msg_buffer_t`, creating a size mismatch for fallback use. https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-instrumentation/blob/032473449b53d9f02ec4619d4f5b84e6a81db362/bpf/generictracer/k_tracer.c#L370-L394 On CPU mismatch, `fallback_buf `is used but size is still set to `m_buf->real_size` (up to 8KB) and passed downstream. https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-instrumentation/blob/032473449b53d9f02ec4619d4f5b84e6a81db362/bpf/generictracer/protocol_http.h#L412-L441 `bytes_len (from m_buf->real_size)` is used to read payload data from `u_buf`; if `u_buf` is the 256B fallback, this can over-read and leak memory into telemetry. https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-instrumentation/blob/032473449b53d9f02ec4619d4f5b84e6a81db362/bpf/tpinjector/tpinjector.c#L192-L206 `real_size `is set up to 8192 bytes and stored with `cpu_id`; `fallback_buf `only contains 256 bytes. ### PoC Local testing with an AddressSanitizer user-space PoC reproduced the same class of size-mismatch over-read as the vulnerable fallback-buffer path. That result is sufficient to ground the advisory in a fresh local reproduction even though the exact end-to-end eBPF path still depends on host BPF capabilities. To reproduce the validated behavior locally: 1. create a struct that models `fallback_buf[256]` and `real_size` 2. populate only the 256-byte fallback buffer 3. simulate the CPU mismatch path by using the fallback buffer as the source pointer while preserving a much larger `real_size` 4. perform a read of `real_size` bytes from that 256-byte backing store under ASan An equivalent reproducer is: ```c // save as /tmp/poc_msgbuf_oob.c #include <stdint.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> struct msg_buffer { unsigned char fallback_buf[256]; uint16_t pos; uint16_t real_size; uint32_t cpu_id; }; int main(void) { struct msg_buffer m = {0}; unsigned char sink[8192]; memset(m.fallback_buf, 'A', sizeof(m.fallback_buf)); m.real_size = 4096; memcpy(sink, m.fallback_buf, m.real_size); printf("copied %u bytes from a 256-byte fallback buffer\n", m.real_size); return 0; } ``` Compile and run with ASan: ```bash cc -fsanitize=address -O1 -g -o /tmp/poc_msgbuf_oob /tmp/poc_msgbuf_oob.c ASAN_OPTIONS=abort_on_error=1 /tmp/poc_msgbuf_oob ``` Expected result: ```text AddressSanitizer: heap-buffer-overflow or stack-buffer-overflow ``` That user-space PoC matches the size-mismatch condition in the vulnerable code path, even though the exact end-to-end eBPF runtime path still requires host BPF attach/load capability. ### Impact This is a confidentiality issue in the HTTP tracing path. The vulnerable read occurs in OBI's local fallback-buffer handling when context propagation is enabled, the `tpinjector` sock_msg path is active, HTTP large-buffer capture is configured with a non-zero size, and a CPU mismatch occurs between producer and consumer contexts. Under those conditions, OBI can over-read from the fallback buffer and export unrelated memory through telemetry.

🎯 Affected products1

  • go/go.opentelemetry.io/obi:< 0.9.0

🔗 References (2)