Security Bulletin
Summary
IBM Watson Speech Services Cartridge is vulnerable to a Denial of Service in huggingface/transformers, due to various issues identified within the package [CVE-2025-3262, CVE-2025-3264, CVE-2025-3933, CVE-2025-3263]. Huggingface/transformers is used in our speech service runtimes. This vulnerabilitiy has been addressed. Please read the details for remediation below.
Vulnerability Details
CVEID: CVE-2025-3262
DESCRIPTION: A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability was discovered in the huggingface/transformers repository, specifically in version 4.49.0. The vulnerability is due to inefficient regular expression complexity in the `SETTING_RE` variable within the `transformers/commands/chat.py` file. The regex contains repetition groups and non-optimized quantifiers, leading to exponential backtracking when processing 'almost matching' payloads. This can degrade application performance and potentially result in a denial-of-service (DoS) when handling specially crafted input strings. The issue is fixed in version 4.51.0.
CWE: CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CVSS Source: NVD
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2025-3264
DESCRIPTION: A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability was discovered in the Hugging Face Transformers library, specifically in the `get_imports()` function within `dynamic_module_utils.py`. This vulnerability affects versions 4.49.0 and is fixed in version 4.51.0. The issue arises from a regular expression pattern `\s*try\s*:.*?except.*?:` used to filter out try/except blocks from Python code, which can be exploited to cause excessive CPU consumption through crafted input strings due to catastrophic backtracking. This vulnerability can lead to remote code loading disruption, resource exhaustion in model serving, supply chain attack vectors, and development pipeline disruption.
CWE: CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CVSS Source: security@huntr.dev
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
CVEID: CVE-2025-3933
DESCRIPTION: A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability was discovered in the Hugging Face Transformers library, specifically within the DonutProcessor class's `token2json()` method. This vulnerability affects versions 4.50.3 and earlier, and is fixed in version 4.52.1. The issue arises from the regex pattern `` which can be exploited to cause excessive CPU consumption through crafted input strings due to catastrophic backtracking. This vulnerability can lead to service disruption, resource exhaustion, and potential API service vulnerabilities, impacting document processing tasks using the Donut model.
CWE: CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CVSS Source: NVD
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
CVEID: CVE-2025-3263
DESCRIPTION: A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability was discovered in the Hugging Face Transformers library, specifically in the `get_configuration_file()` function within the `transformers.configuration_utils` module. The affected version is 4.49.0, and the issue is resolved in version 4.51.0. The vulnerability arises from the use of a regular expression pattern `config\.(.*)\.json` that can be exploited to cause excessive CPU consumption through crafted input strings, leading to catastrophic backtracking. This can result in model serving disruption, resource exhaustion, and increased latency in applications using the library.
CWE: CWE-1333: Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
CVSS Source: security@huntr.dev
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
Affected Products and Versions
| Affected Product(s) | Version(s) |
| IBM Watson Speech Services Cartridge | 4.0.0 - 5.2.1 |
Remediation/Fixes
| Product(s) | Version(s) | Remediation/Fix/Instructions |
| IBM Watson Speech Services Cartridge | 5.2.2 | The fix in 5.2.2 applies to all versions listed (4.0.0-5.2.1). Version 5.2.2 can be downloaded and installed from: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloud-paks/cp-data |
Workarounds and Mitigations
None
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References
Acknowledgement
Change History
31 Oct 2025: Initial Publication
*The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Security Bulletin.
Disclaimer
According to the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an "industry open standard designed to convey vulnerability severity and help to determine urgency and priority of response." IBM PROVIDES THE CVSS SCORES ""AS IS"" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CUSTOMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ANY ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SECURITY VULNERABILITY. In addition to other efforts to address potential vulnerabilities, IBM periodically updates the record of components contained in our product offerings. As part of that effort, if IBM identifies previously unidentified packages in a product/service inventory, we address relevant vulnerabilities regardless of CVE date. Inclusion of an older CVEID does not demonstrate that the referenced product has been used by IBM since that date, nor that IBM was aware of a vulnerability as of that date. We are making clients aware of relevant vulnerabilities as we become aware of them. "Affected Products and Versions" referenced in IBM Security Bulletins are intended to be only products and versions that are supported by IBM and have not passed their end-of-support or warranty date. Thus, failure to reference unsupported or extended-support products and versions in this Security Bulletin does not constitute a determination by IBM that they are unaffected by the vulnerability. Reference to one or more unsupported versions in this Security Bulletin shall not create an obligation for IBM to provide fixes for any unsupported or extended-support products or versions.
Document Location
Worldwide
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Document Information
Modified date:
31 October 2025
Initial Publish date:
31 October 2025
UID
ibm17249859