Vulnerability · Published Aug 6, 2025 · Assigned by @huntr_ai
CVE-2025-5197Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in huggingface/transformers
Medium 5.3
In plain English
A medium-severity regular-expression denial of service in huggingface/transformers from huggingface. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 36% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official 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.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| PyPI | transformers | 4.53.0 | GHSA-9356-575x-2w9m |
| PyPI | transformers | 4.53.0 | PYSEC-2026-1983 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| huggingface | huggingface/transformers | unspecified – before 4.53.0 |
Weakness: CWE-1333 · Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L