The fluent-plugin-opentelemetry plugin (specifically the in_opentelemetry HTTP input) lacked strict size limits on incoming requests. It was discovered that the plugin read the entire request body and decompressed payloads into memory without enforcing maximum size thresholds. If the OpenTelemetry ingestion endpoint is exposed to untrusted networks, an attacker can send an excessively large HTTP request or a maliciously crafted, highly compressed payload. When the plugin attempts to read or decompress this payload, it will expand to an excessive size and it will consume significant system resources.

Impact

This vulnerability allows for a Denial of Service (DoS) attack via memory exhaustion. The rapid memory consumption during decompression can easily lead to an Out-of-Memory kill of the Fluentd process by the operating system. This results in the disruption of all log collection and forwarding capabilities on the affected node.