CVE-2025-5197 | Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in huggingface/transformers

Exp

A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability exists in the Hugging Face Transformers library, specifically in the `convert_tf_weight_name_to_pt_weight_name()` function. This function, responsible for converting TensorFlow weight names to PyTorch format, uses a regex pattern `/[^/]*___([^/]*)/` that can be exploited to cause excessive CPU consumption through crafted input strings due to catastrophic backtracking. The vulnerability affects versions up to 4.51.3 and is fixed in version 4.53.0. This issue can lead to service disruption, resource exhaustion, and potential API service vulnerabilities, impacting model conversion processes between TensorFlow and PyTorch formats.

Published: 2025-08-06 Last update: 2025-10-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2025-5197 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.10%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2025-5197

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-5197

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-02 0.03% 0.10% +0.06%
2 2026-02-18 0.10% 0.03% -0.07%
3 2026-01-02 — 0.10% —

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-5197

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 3.9 1.4 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-5197

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2025-5197

GHSA-9356-575x-2w9m · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: pip — Hugging Face Transformers Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-5197

vendor priority summary link
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-5197

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-5197

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
huggingface transformers < 4.53.0 cpe:2.3:a:huggingface:transformers:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-5197

cvelogic Threat Intelligence