CVE-2025-6921

Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in huggingface/transformers

Published Sep 23, 2025 CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
The huggingface/transformers library, versions prior to 4.53.0, is vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in the AdamWeightDecay optimizer. The vulnerability arises from the _do_use_weight_decay method, which processes user-controlled regular expressions in the include_in_weight_decay and exclude_from_weight_decay lists. Malicious regular expressions can cause catastrophic backtracking during the re.search call, leading to 100% CPU utilization and a denial of service. This issue can be exploited by attackers who can control the patterns in these lists, potentially causing the machine learning task to hang and rendering services unresponsive.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
EUVD EUVD EUVD-2025-30889 Hugging Face Transformers vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in the AdamWeightDecay optimizer
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-4w7r-h757-3r74 Hugging Face Transformers vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in the AdamWeightDecay optimizer
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:huggingface:transformers:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Huggingface
Huggingface transformers
Vendors & Products Huggingface
Huggingface transformers
Type Values Removed Values Added
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

threat_severity

Moderate

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description The huggingface/transformers library, versions prior to 4.53.0, is vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in the AdamWeightDecay optimizer. The vulnerability arises from the _do_use_weight_decay method, which processes user-controlled regular expressions in the include_in_weight_decay and exclude_from_weight_decay lists. Malicious regular expressions can cause catastrophic backtracking during the re.search call, leading to 100% CPU utilization and a denial of service. This issue can be exploited by attackers who can control the patterns in these lists, potentially causing the machine learning task to hang and rendering services unresponsive.
Title Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in huggingface/transformers
Weaknesses CWE-400
References
Metrics cvssV3_0

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
@huntr_ai
Published
Updated
Sep 23, 2025, 2:56 PM
Reserved
Jun 30, 2025, 9:44 AM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Sep 23, 2025, 2:15 PM
Modified
Oct 11, 2026, 8:10 PM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Sep 23, 2025, 1:56 PM