diff --git a/pkg/imageverifier/bindir/bindir.go b/pkg/imageverifier/bindir/bindir.go
index 198f7643a452a..cc053c7f0557e 100644
--- a/pkg/imageverifier/bindir/bindir.go
+++ b/pkg/imageverifier/bindir/bindir.go
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/containerd/containerd/v2/internal/tomlext"
 	"github.com/containerd/containerd/v2/pkg/imageverifier"
+	"github.com/containerd/containerd/v2/pkg/tracing"
 	"github.com/containerd/log"
 	ocispec "github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/specs-go/v1"
 )
@@ -123,6 +124,14 @@ func (v *ImageVerifier) runVerifier(ctx context.Context, bin string, imageName s
 
 	cmd := exec.CommandContext(ctx, binPath, args...)
 
+	// Attach OTEL propagators trace context env var to the child process
+	if traceContext, err := tracing.GetPropagatorsTraceContext(ctx); err != nil {
+		log.G(ctx).Warn("could not marshall propagators trace context", err)
+	} else {
+		traceContextEnv := fmt.Sprintf("OTEL_PROPAGATORS_TRACE_CONTEXT=%s", traceContext)
+		cmd.Env = append(os.Environ(), traceContextEnv)
+	}
+
 	// We construct our own pipes instead of using the default StdinPipe,
 	// StoutPipe, and StderrPipe in order to set timeouts on reads and writes.
 	stdinRead, stdinWrite, err := os.Pipe()
diff --git a/pkg/tracing/tracing.go b/pkg/tracing/tracing.go
index 48d760feb8f75..310272e43ad16 100644
--- a/pkg/tracing/tracing.go
+++ b/pkg/tracing/tracing.go
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ package tracing
 
 import (
 	"context"
+	"encoding/json"
 	"net/http"
 	"strings"
 
@@ -25,6 +26,7 @@ import (
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/otel"
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/otel/attribute"
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/otel/codes"
+	"go.opentelemetry.io/otel/propagation"
 	semconv "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/semconv/v1.21.0"
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/otel/trace"
 )
@@ -130,3 +132,11 @@ func Attribute(k string, v any) attribute.KeyValue {
 func HTTPStatusCodeAttributes(code int) []attribute.KeyValue {
 	return []attribute.KeyValue{semconv.HTTPStatusCodeKey.Int(code)}
 }
+
+// GetPropagatorsTraceContext returns the current propagators trace context as a JSON string
+func GetPropagatorsTraceContext(ctx context.Context) ([]byte, error) {
+	propagator := propagation.TraceContext{}
+	carrier := propagation.MapCarrier{}
+	propagator.Inject(ctx, carrier)
+	return json.Marshal(carrier)
+}