CVE-2026-81871 PUBLISHED

OpenTelemetry-Go: Log gRPC exporter ignores env TLS certs, bypassing mTLS/pinning

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 27.08.2026 Published: 16.09.2026 Updated: 16.09.2026

OpenTelemetry-Go is the Go implementation of OpenTelemetry. Prior to version 0.21.0, the exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploggrpc package loads OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_CERTIFICATE, OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_CERTIFICATE, and related client certificate environment variables through loadEnvTLS into cfg.tlsCfg, but newGRPCDialOptions does not apply cfg.tlsCfg when creating gRPC transport credentials. The environment-only TLS path instead uses credentials.NewTLS with system roots and no configured client certificate, bypassing intended private CA pinning and mutual TLS unless the application also supplies WithTLSCredentials. A network attacker able to intercept or spoof the collector connection with a system-trusted certificate can read or alter log telemetry. This issue is fixed in version 0.21.0.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 6.3

Product Status

Vendor open-telemetry
Product opentelemetry-go
Versions
  • Version < 0.21.0 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-295: Improper Certificate Validation CWE
  • CWE-923: Improper Restriction of Communication Channel to Intended Endpoints CWE