Description
Tempo queries with large limits can cause large memory allocations which can impact the availability of the service, depending on its deployment strategy.

Mitigation can be done by setting max_result_limit in the search config, e.g. to 262144 (2^18). Alternatively, automatically restart the service.
Published: 2026-04-24
Score: 7.5 High
EPSS: < 1% Very Low
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

Impact

Tempo allows users to send trace queries that include a limit parameter. When the limit is set to a very high value, the server allocates a buffer proportional to that limit. This unbounded allocation can exhaust memory, leading to service unavailability depending on how the deployment is configured. The weakness is a resource exhaustion vulnerability (CWE‑400) from unbounded memory allocation (CWE‑770).

Affected Systems

The affected products are Grafana:Tempo and Grafana:Enterprise Traces (GET) – the tracing query component. No specific version information is supplied, so all publicly available releases of these products are potentially vulnerable until an official fix is released.

Risk and Exploitability

7.5 indicates a medium‑to‑high severity. The EPSS score is reported as < 1%, suggesting very low exploitation probability in the wild. Tempo is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalog. The vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker with access to the query interface. Based on the description, it is inferred that the attacker would need query execution privileges to perform the attack, but the impact is significant because it can bring the service down.

Generated by OpenCVE AI on July 26, 2026 at 00:28 UTC.

Remediation

No vendor fix or workaround currently provided.

OpenCVE Recommended Actions

  • Set max_result_limit in the search configuration to 262,144 (or a lower safe value) to reserve a maximum buffer size for queries
  • Automatically restart Tempo when memory usage spikes due to oversized queries
  • Implement monitoring for memory usage and enforce rate limiting on the query endpoint to mitigate potential abuse

Generated by OpenCVE AI on July 26, 2026 at 00:28 UTC.

Tracking

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-p4r4-xvrq-gvmc Grafana Tempo has an Uncontrolled Resource Consumption issue
History

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Tempo queries with large limits can cause large memory allocations which can impact the availability of the service, depending on its deployment strategy. Mitigation can be done by setting max_result_limit in the search config, e.g. to 262144 (2^18). Tempo queries with large limits can cause large memory allocations which can impact the availability of the service, depending on its deployment strategy. Mitigation can be done by setting max_result_limit in the search config, e.g. to 262144 (2^18). Alternatively, automatically restart the service.

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-770
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

 threat_severity

Important

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 01:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Grafana
Grafana tempo
Vendors & Products Grafana
Grafana tempo

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-400
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 08:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Tempo queries with large limits can cause large memory allocations which can impact the availability of the service, depending on its deployment strategy. Mitigation can be done by setting max_result_limit in the search config, e.g. to 262144 (2^18).
Title Tempo query limit results in unbounded memory allocation
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

Subscriptions

Grafana Tempo
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GRAFANA

Published:

Updated: 2026-07-24T12:23:03.799Z

Reserved: 2026-01-05T09:26:06.215Z

Link: CVE-2026-21728

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2026-07-23T12:08:10.531Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Awaiting Analysis

Published: 2026-04-24T09:16:03.710

Modified: 2026-06-17T13:20:05.907

Link: CVE-2026-21728

cve-icon Redhat

Severity : Important

Publid Date: 2026-04-24T08:00:47Z

Links: CVE-2026-21728 - Bugzilla

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-07-26T00:30:04Z

Weaknesses
  • CWE-400

    Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

  • CWE-770

    Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling