datadog-opentelemetry has unbounded W3C tracestate parsing that may lead to DoS (CVE-2026-54788) | HOL Guard CVE

High · CVSS 7.5CVE-2026-54788GHSA-GPWF-4H98-V82Q

datadog-opentelemetry has unbounded W3C tracestate parsing that may lead to DoS

Answer in brief

CVE-2026-54788 records a High severity (CVSS 7.5) vulnerability in datadog-opentelemetry has unbounded W3C tracestate parsing that may lead to DoS. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps datadog-opentelemetry (rust). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Analysis pending evidence review

HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.

Published Aug 28, 2026Updated Aug 28, 2026Source checked Aug 28, 2026First seen by HOL Aug 28, 2026Material review Aug 28, 2026

Upstream Advisory

Key facts

Risk: High · CVSS 7.5
Exploitation: Not marked as known exploited
Affected software: 1 mapped package or product
Fix availability: Available

Why this deserves its current priority

CVSS is 7.5. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.

Analysis status

Analysis pending evidence review

Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.

Affected scope and exposure questions

The current feed maps datadog-opentelemetry (rust). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Mapped affected packages and fixed versions
Package	Affected range	Fixed version
datadog-opentelemetryrust	>=0.1.0,<0.3.3	0.3.3

Recommended response

Check inventory. Check lockfiles and deployed manifests for datadog-opentelemetry.
Review the reported fix. Update datadog-opentelemetry to 0.3.3 if you use the affected versions. Test the change in a non-production environment first.

Evidence timeline and material changes

Published upstream
Aug 28, 2026
Evidence: source:ghsa:source_dates:source-dates:record
Source modified
Aug 28, 2026
Evidence: source:ghsa:source_dates:source-dates:record
First seen by HOL
Aug 28, 2026

Sources and claim methodology

Upstream source 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: 1. Disable `tracecontext` extraction by setting `DD_TRACE_PROPAGATION_STYLE_EXTRACT` to a value that does not include `tracecontext` (for example, `datadog`). 2. Cap the maximum HTTP request header size at an upstream proxy or web server.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.