Attack Surface: Receiver Protocol Exploitation
Description: Attackers exploit vulnerabilities in the protocol handling logic within the OpenTelemetry Collector's receiver implementations (OTLP, Jaeger, Zipkin, Prometheus, etc.) to gain unauthorized access, cause denial of service, or execute arbitrary code. OpenTelemetry Collector Contribution: The Collector's own code implementing these receiver protocols is the direct source of the vulnerability. This is not about vulnerabilities in the protocols themselves, but in the Collector's handling of them. Example: A buffer overflow vulnerability in the Collector's OTLP receiver's gRPC handling code (written as part of the Collector project) allows an attacker to send a crafted OTLP payload, crashing the Collector or potentially gaining control. Impact: Denial of service, remote code execution, data corruption, information disclosure. Risk Severity: Critical to High (depending on the specific vulnerability). Mitigation Strategies: * Regular Updates: Keep the Collector updated to the latest version to benefit from security patches to the Collector's receiver code. * Input Validation: The Collector's receiver code must implement rigorous input validation and sanitization. * Network Segmentation: Limit the network exposure of receivers; only expose necessary receivers. * Protocol-Specific Security: The Collector's implementation must adhere to security best practices for each protocol. * Fuzzing: Conduct fuzz testing on the Collector's receiver implementations.
Attack Surface: Denial of Service (DoS) against Receivers
Description: Attackers flood the OpenTelemetry Collector's receivers with a high volume of requests or specially crafted data, overwhelming the Collector and preventing legitimate data processing. OpenTelemetry Collector Contribution: The Collector's receivers, as implemented in the Collector's code, are the direct targets of the DoS attack. The Collector's resource management capabilities are directly relevant. Example: An attacker sends a massive number of OTLP requests to the Collector's OTLP receiver, exhausting the Collector's resources (CPU, memory, network bandwidth) as allocated and managed by the Collector. Impact: Denial of service, preventing legitimate telemetry data from being collected and processed by the Collector. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies: * Rate Limiting: The Collector should implement rate limiting on its receivers. * Resource Quotas: The Collector should allow configuration of resource quotas (CPU, memory) for its receivers. * Load Balancing: Use a load balancer in front of multiple Collector instances (this is external, but mitigates the impact on any single Collector). * Timeouts: The Collector should implement appropriate timeouts for connections and processing. * Monitoring: Monitor the Collector's receiver resource consumption and set up alerts.
Attack Surface: Weak Authentication/Authorization on Receivers
Description: Insufficient or improperly configured authentication and authorization mechanisms within the OpenTelemetry Collector's receiver implementations allow unauthorized clients to send data to the Collector. OpenTelemetry Collector Contribution: The Collector's code provides and manages the authentication and authorization mechanisms for its receivers. Flaws in this code, or misconfiguration, create the vulnerability. Example: The Collector's OTLP receiver is configured with a weak or default API key, allowing an attacker to inject malicious telemetry data into the Collector. Impact: Data injection, data corruption, potential for further attacks (e.g., exploiting vulnerabilities in the Collector's processors). Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies: * Strong Credentials: The Collector should enforce the use of strong, unique credentials. * TLS/SSL: The Collector should enforce TLS/SSL with strong ciphers and proper certificate validation. * Granular Authorization: The Collector should implement granular authorization policies. * Regular Audits: Regularly audit the Collector's authentication and authorization configurations. * Well-Vetted Extensions: Use well-vetted and actively maintained authentication/authorization extensions within the Collector.
Attack Surface: Data Exfiltration via Exporters
Description: An attacker who compromises the OpenTelemetry Collector reconfigures the Collector's exporters to send telemetry data to a malicious destination. This requires compromising the Collector's configuration or runtime. OpenTelemetry Collector Contribution: The Collector's exporters, as implemented in the Collector's code, are the mechanism for sending data. The vulnerability lies in the ability to reconfigure them maliciously. Example: An attacker modifies the Collector's OTLP exporter configuration (through a configuration vulnerability or direct access to the Collector) to point to an attacker-controlled server. Impact: Data leakage, loss of sensitive information. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies: * Strict Access Control: Implement strict access controls to the Collector's configuration and runtime environment. * Configuration Monitoring: Monitor the Collector's configuration changes and set up alerts. * Secure Configuration Management: Use a secure configuration management system. * Regular Audits: Regularly audit the Collector's exporter configurations. * Principle of Least Privilege: Run the Collector with the least privilege necessary.
Attack Surface: Extension Vulnerabilities
Description: Vulnerabilities in extensions (health_check, pprof, zpages, custom extensions) that are part of the OpenTelemetry Collector are exploited to gain information, cause denial of service, or potentially execute code.
OpenTelemetry Collector Contribution: The Collector's code includes and runs these extensions. The vulnerability exists within the extension code that is part of the Collector.
Example: The Collector's zpages extension is exposed on a public interface without authentication, allowing an attacker to view internal Collector state. A custom extension, bundled with the Collector, has a remote code execution vulnerability.
Impact: Information disclosure, denial of service, remote code execution (depending on the extension).
Risk Severity: Medium to Critical (depending on the extension and vulnerability, but we're filtering for High/Critical).
Mitigation Strategies:
* Minimize Extensions: Only enable necessary extensions within the Collector.
* Regular Updates: Regularly update the Collector to get the latest versions of extensions.
* Custom Extension Audits: Thoroughly vet and audit any custom extensions bundled with the Collector.
* Access Control: Restrict access to the Collector's extensions (e.g., using network policies).
* Secure Configuration: Carefully configure the Collector's extensions, avoiding defaults that expose information.