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Medium

Denial of Service in Tensorflow

  • Disclosed: 25.09.2020
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 13:19

Impact

The SparseCountSparseOutput implementation does not validate that the input arguments form a valid sparse tensor. In particular, there is no validation that the indices tensor has rank 2. This tensor must be a matrix because code assumes its elements are accessed as elements of a matrix: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/blob/0e68f4d3295eb0281a517c3662f6698992b7b2cf/tensorflow/core/kernels/count_ops.cc#L185

However, malicious users can pass in tensors of different rank, resulting in a CHECK assertion failure and a crash. This can be used to cause denial of service in serving installations, if users are allowed to control the components of the input sparse tensor.

Patches

We have patched the issue in 3cbb917b4714766030b28eba9fb41bb97ce9ee02 and will release a patch release.

We recommend users to upgrade to TensorFlow 2.3.1.

For more information

Please consult our security guide for more information regarding the security model and how to contact us with issues and questions.

Attribution

This vulnerability is a variant of GHSA-p5f8-gfw5-33w4

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Python (PyPI) tensorflow >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.1 2.3.1
Python (PyPI) tensorflow-cpu >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.1 2.3.1
Python (PyPI) tensorflow-gpu >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.1 2.3.1

References

CVSS score 6.3/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-20, CWE-617
Platform
Python (PyPI)
Package
tensorflow, tensorflow-cpu, tensorflow-gpu
Disclosed
25.09.2020
Updated
11.10.2026 13:19

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2020-120 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2020-277 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2020-312 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-qc53-44cj-vfvx - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: tensorflow-cpu

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Python (PyPI)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

All (430) in the archive
Total entries
430
First → latest
04.2019 07.2024
Without a fix
0
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 6
  • High 111
  • Medium 208
  • Low 105

Disclosures per year

Severity:
  1. Denial of Service in Tensorflow this entry
    Medium · 6.3 CVE-2020-15197 >= 2.3.0, < 2.3.1 2.3.1
  2. TensorFlow has segfault in array_ops.upper_bound
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-33976 < 2.12.1 2.12.1
  3. TensorFlow vulnerable to Out-of-Bounds Read in DynamicStitch
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25659 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  4. TensorFlow vulnerable to seg fault in `tf.raw_ops.Print`
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25660 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  5. TensorFlow vulnerable to integer overflow in EditDistance
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25662 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  6. TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in TensorArrayConcatV2
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25663 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  7. TensorFlow has Heap-buffer-overflow in AvgPoolGrad
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25664 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  8. TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in SparseSparseMaximum
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25665 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  9. TensorFlow has Floating Point Exception in AudioSpectrogram
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25666 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  10. TensorFlow has a heap out-of-buffer read vulnerability in the QuantizeAndDequantize operation
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2023-25668 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  11. TensorFlow has Floating Point Exception in AvgPoolGrad with XLA
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25669 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  12. TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in QuantizedMatMulWithBiasAndDequantize
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25670 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  13. TensorFlow has segmentation fault in tfg-translate
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25671 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  14. TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in LookupTableImportV2
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25672 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  15. TensorFlow has Floating Point Exception in TensorListSplit with XLA
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25673 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  16. TensorFlow has Null Pointer Error in RandomShuffle with XLA enable
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25674 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  17. TensorFlow has Segfault in Bincount with XLA
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25675 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  18. TensorFlow has null dereference on ParallelConcat with XLA
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25676 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  19. TensorFlow has double free in Fractional(Max/Avg)Pool
    High · 8.0 CVE-2023-25801 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  20. TensorFlow has Floating Point Exception in TFLite in conv kernel
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-27579 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
  21. TensorFlow vulnerable to Out-of-Bounds Read in GRUBlockCellGrad
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-25658 < 2.11.1 2.11.1
Show more (20) Showing 21 of 118

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