CVE-2023-25662 — HIGH (CVSS 7.5) AI Security Vulnerability

CISO Take

Any TensorFlow deployment exposing inference APIs to untrusted inputs is vulnerable to remote process crash—no authentication required. Upgrade to TensorFlow 2.12.0 or 2.11.1 immediately. Production ML services must patch before deploying; add input shape validation at the API gateway as a short-term compensating control.

Risk Assessment

HIGH risk for internet-exposed TensorFlow inference services. CVSS 7.5 with network vector, low complexity, no privileges, and no user interaction makes this trivially exploitable. Impact is purely availability (A:H)—no data exfiltration or code execution path exists. For batch training pipelines isolated from untrusted inputs, risk drops to LOW. Not in CISA KEV, suggesting no confirmed active exploitation at time of publication, but low exploitation barrier warrants priority patching.

Affected Systems

Package	Ecosystem	Vulnerable Range	Patched
tensorflow	pip	—	No patch
195.0K OpenSSF 7.2 3.7K dependents Pushed 6d ago 4% patched ~1372d to patch Full package profile →

Do you use tensorflow? You're affected.

Severity & Risk

CVSS 3.1

7.5 / 10

EPSS

0.2%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Higher than 35% of all CVEs

Source: EPSS v3 — FIRST.org

Exploitation Status

No known exploitation

Sophistication

Trivial

Attack Surface

AV Network

AC Low

PR None

UI None

S Unchanged

C None

I None

A High

Recommended Action

5 steps

PATCH

Upgrade TensorFlow to 2.12.0 (stable) or 2.11.1 (security branch) immediately.
WORKAROUND

Validate and enforce bounds on input tensor shapes and sequence lengths at the API gateway before forwarding to TensorFlow operations.
ISOLATION

Run TensorFlow inference workers in isolated containers with automatic restart policies to minimize downtime from triggered crashes.
DETECTION

Alert on abnormal TensorFlow process crashes or OOM errors correlated with unusual input sizes or request patterns from specific source IPs.
AUDIT

Enumerate all internal services using EditDistance and prioritize patching by exposure level (internet-facing first).

CISA SSVC Assessment

Decision Track

Exploitation none

Automatable Yes

Technical Impact partial

Source: CISA Vulnrichment (SSVC v2.0). Decision based on the CISA Coordinator decision tree.

Classification

DoS Framework Inference AML.T0010.001 - AI Software AML.T0029 - Denial of AI Service AML.T0049 - Exploit Public-Facing Application

Compliance Impact

This CVE is relevant to:

EU AI Act

Article 15 - Accuracy, Robustness and Cybersecurity

ISO 42001

A.6.2 - AI System Design and Implementation

NIST AI RMF

MANAGE 2.2 - Mechanisms to Sustain AI System Value and Reduce Negative Impacts

OWASP LLM Top 10

LLM10:2025 - Unbounded Consumption

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2023-25662?

Any TensorFlow deployment exposing inference APIs to untrusted inputs is vulnerable to remote process crash—no authentication required. Upgrade to TensorFlow 2.12.0 or 2.11.1 immediately. Production ML services must patch before deploying; add input shape validation at the API gateway as a short-term compensating control.

Is CVE-2023-25662 actively exploited?

No confirmed active exploitation of CVE-2023-25662 has been reported, but organizations should still patch proactively.

How to fix CVE-2023-25662?

1. PATCH: Upgrade TensorFlow to 2.12.0 (stable) or 2.11.1 (security branch) immediately. 2. WORKAROUND: Validate and enforce bounds on input tensor shapes and sequence lengths at the API gateway before forwarding to TensorFlow operations. 3. ISOLATION: Run TensorFlow inference workers in isolated containers with automatic restart policies to minimize downtime from triggered crashes. 4. DETECTION: Alert on abnormal TensorFlow process crashes or OOM errors correlated with unusual input sizes or request patterns from specific source IPs. 5. AUDIT: Enumerate all internal services using EditDistance and prioritize patching by exposure level (internet-facing first).

What systems are affected by CVE-2023-25662?

This vulnerability affects the following AI/ML architecture patterns: model serving, training pipelines, ML inference APIs.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-25662?

CVE-2023-25662 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH). The EPSS exploitation probability is 0.15%.

Technical Details

NVD Description

TensorFlow is an open source platform for machine learning. Versions prior to 2.12.0 and 2.11.1 are vulnerable to integer overflow in EditDistance. A fix is included in TensorFlow version 2.12.0 and version 2.11.1.

Exploitation Scenario

An adversary identifies a public-facing ML inference API built on unpatched TensorFlow—for example, a text similarity scoring or speech recognition service. They craft an HTTP POST request containing tensor inputs with values engineered to trigger an integer overflow in the EditDistance computation, causing the TF worker process to crash and return a 500 error. By automating requests at regular intervals, the attacker sustains a persistent DoS condition against production inference endpoints, breaching SLA commitments and disrupting compliance-critical AI applications without needing any credentials or prior access.