Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2026-39883: OpenTelemetry OpenTelemetry-Go untrusted search path in host ID detection

CVE-2026-39883 · Severity: high · CVSS 7 · Published 2026-04-08

Technologies: Opentelemetry-Go, go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk (Go), Opentelemetry Go SDK, Opentelemetry. Vendors: Opentelemetry, Go, Red Hat.

Executive brief

OpenTelemetry-Go is a software library used by developers to monitor and trace the performance of Go-based applications. A security flaw in how the library identifies the host system on BSD and Solaris platforms allows a local attacker to trick the application into running malicious code. This could lead to a full system compromise or unauthorized access to sensitive application data.

Technical details

OpenTelemetry-Go is vulnerable to an untrusted search path (CWE-426) in its host resource detection component. While a previous fix (CVE-2026-24051) addressed this for Darwin by using absolute paths for the 'ioreg' command, the 'kenv' command used on BSD and Solaris platforms remained unpatched. The library uses 'exec.Command' with a bare name, which causes the Go runtime to search the system PATH. A local attacker with low privileges can place a malicious 'kenv' binary in a directory earlier in the PATH, leading to arbitrary code execution when the application initializes resource detection. This affects DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris. The issue is resolved in version 1.43.0 by using the absolute path '/bin/kenv'.

Affected products

  • OpenTelemetry opentelemetry-go >= 1.15.0, < 1.43.0
  • Red Hat multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.8 2.8.8

Timeline

  • 2026-04-03: patched: Version 1.43.0 released
  • 2026-04-08: disclosed: GitHub Security Advisory published
  • 2026-04-08: advisory: NVD published CVE-2026-39883
  • 2026-06-16: advisory: Red Hat security advisory RHSA-2026:26254 published

References

Related threats