CVE-2025-67725: Tornado is Vulnerable to Quadratic DoS via Repeated Header Coalescing
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2025-67725 is a high (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in tornadoweb tornado. EPSS estimates a 0.56% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 46.5% of scored vulnerabilities.
Severe, CVSS 7.5 (CVE.org); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources; EPSS 1% (FIRST, 03-11-2026)
Source freshness unavailable
How is this decided?Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 39 · Related 33Timeline
- 12-12-2025PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 18-12-2025Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
Tornado is a Python web framework and asynchronous networking library. In versions 6.5.2 and below, a single maliciously crafted HTTP request can block the server's event loop for an extended period, caused by the HTTPHeaders.add method. The function accumulates values using string concatenation when the same header name is repeated, causing a Denial of Service (DoS). Due to Python string immutability, each concatenation copies the entire string, resulting in O(n²) time complexity. The severity can vary from high if max_header_size has been increased from its default, to low if it has its default value of 64KB. This issue is fixed in version 6.5.3.
CVSS metrics
6 scores · 6 sources · 1 version- OSV · PypiEcosystem advisory · calculated7.5HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated7.5HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated7.5HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- NVDNIST7.5HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- OSV · AlpineEcosystem advisory · calculated7.5HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS trend
Probability
0.56%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
47%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
No change 0.00 pp
From 0.56% on 04-10-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogsNot in the CISA KEV catalog.
Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.
Not in the CIRCL catalog.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root causeAffected systems
Known conditions: network-reachable, no authentication, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.
Alpine1 product
- py3-tornado< 6.5.4-r0
Debian1 product
- python-tornado< 6.2.0-3+deb12u4 | < 6.4.2-3+deb13u2 | < 6.5.4-0.1
PyPI1 product
- tornado< 6.5.3
Tornadoweb1 product
- tornado< 6.5.3
Ubuntu1 product
- python-tornado< 4.2.1-1ubuntu3.1+esm2 | < 4.5.3-1ubuntu0.2+esm2 | < 6.0.3+really5.1.1-3ubuntu0.1~esm3 | < 6.1.0-3ubuntu0.1~esm4 | < 6.4.0-1ubuntu0.4 | < 6.4.2-3ubuntu0.2
5 vendors · 5 products
References
11 links- github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/security/advisories/GHSA-c98p-7wgm-6p64X Refsource CONFIRMWEBAdvisoryREPORTVendor Advisory
- github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/commit/771472cfdaeebc0d89a9cc46e249f8891a6b29cdX Refsource MISCWEBFIXREPORTPatch