diff --git a/services/opentsdb/service.go b/services/opentsdb/service.go
index 0c60aec85a6..1dedf4c90b2 100644
--- a/services/opentsdb/service.go
+++ b/services/opentsdb/service.go
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ func (s *Service) handleTelnetConn(conn net.Conn) {
 		tags := make(map[string]string)
 		for t := range tagStrs {
 			parts := strings.SplitN(tagStrs[t], "=", 2)
-			if len(parts) != 2 {
+			if len(parts) != 2 || parts[0] == "" || parts[1] == "" {
 				s.Logger.Println("TSDBServer: malformed tag data", tagStrs[t])
 				continue
 			}