CVE-2025-2099
Huggingface Transformers ≤ 4.48.3
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2025-2099 is a high-severity Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (CWE-1333) vulnerability in Huggingface Transformers. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 43th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as NLP and Transformers; in the Data-Related Vulnerabilities risk domain.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-15691
Vulnerability Data
A vulnerability in the `preprocess_string()` function of the `transformers.testing_utils` module in huggingface/transformers version v4.48.3 allows for a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) attack. The regular expression used to process code blocks in docstrings contains nested quantifiers, leading to exponential…
more
backtracking when processing input with a large number of newline characters. An attacker can exploit this by providing a specially crafted payload, causing high CPU usage and potential application downtime, effectively resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) scenario.
- CWE(s)
AI Security AnalysisAI
- AI Category
- NLP and Transformers
- Risk Domain
- Data-Related Vulnerabilities
- OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
- None mapped
- Classification Reason
- Matched keywords: huggingface, transformers
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation can discover inefficient regex patterns via performance or static analysis.
Development standards and tools can require safe regex construction and forbid known exponential patterns.
Denial-of-service protections limit resource exhaustion caused by expensive regex evaluation.
Input validation can constrain data that would otherwise trigger worst-case regex complexity.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing can detect and reject regex patterns with exponential worst-case complexity.
Secure development lifecycle mandates review of algorithmic efficiency, directly addressing ReDoS-prone regex.
Application security requirements can specify input-validation rules that limit regex complexity.
Secure architecture principles encourage avoidance of computationally expensive constructs such as catastrophic backtracking.
Secure coding standards explicitly prohibit or limit the use of inefficient regular expressions.