5.3

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

Analyzed
AliasesGHSA-9356-575x-2w9mPYSEC-2026-1983CGA-24w8-xq8m-mpp2
Published 06-08-2025Last modified 06-08-2025

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-5197 is a medium (CVSS 5.3) vulnerability in huggingface huggingface/transformers. EPSS estimates a 0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36.2% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Priority
Routine

Not severe (CVSS 5.3, network access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources

Source freshness unavailable

How is this decided?
CVSS score
5.3/10
010
Medium · v3.0 (CVE.org)
EPSS score
0.42%
0%100%
Low · +0.02 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedNot listed by any tracked catalog.
RansomwareNot flaggedNo ransomware use recorded.
Public exploits1reference

Advisory lineage

Upstream 0 · Downstream 0 · Related 3
CGA-HF65-4GHG-H88JCGA-J64P-35GW-64GHCGA-PJ37-JW95-2WW8

Timeline

  1. 06-08-2025
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 06-08-2025
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

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.

CVSS metrics

4 scores · 4 sources · 1 version

EPSS trend

Probability

0.42%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

36%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

Increase +0.02 pp

From 0.40% on 04-10-2026

04-10-202603-11-2026

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEV

Not in the CISA KEV catalog.

ENISA CNW

Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.

CIRCL

Not in the CIRCL catalog.

Public exploits

1 found
  • referenceUnverified

    Exploit Reference (huntr.com)

    Maturity: unknown

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Version check

Known conditions: network-reachable, no authentication, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.

Chainguard7 products
  • nemo< 2.4.0-r5
  • py3.10-transformers-4.51All versions (No fix recorded)
  • py3.11-transformers-4.51All versions (No fix recorded)
  • py3.12-transformers-4.51All versions (No fix recorded)
  • py3.13-transformers-4.51All versions (No fix recorded)
Huggingface2 products
PyPI1 product
  • transformers< 4.53.0

3 vendors · 10 products

References

8 links