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KerasApplication

CVE-2025-9905

HIGH · 7.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-09-19
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 3.11.3 or later.
See remediation →
73/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Public exploit Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The Keras Model.load_model method can be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution, even with safe_mode=True. One can create a specially crafted .h5/.hdf5 model archive that, when loaded via Model.load_model, will trigger arbitrary code to be executed. This is achieved by crafting a special .h5 archive file that uses the Lambda layer feature of keras which allows arbitrary Python code in the form of pickled code. The vulnerability comes from the fact that the safe_mode=True option is not honored when reading .h5 archives. Note that the .h5/.hdf5 format is a legacy format supported by Keras 3 for backwards compatibility.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
KerasApplication
Affected:>= 3.0.0, < 3.11.3

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 3.11.3 or later
Fixed in 3.11.3
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Keras 3.11.3 or later

  1. Check the current installed Keras version using: pip show keras
  2. Upgrade Keras to version 3.11.3 or later using: pip install --upgrade keras>=3.11.3
  3. Verify the upgrade was successful by running: pip show keras and confirming the version is 3.11.3 or higher
  4. If using a virtual environment, ensure the environment is activated before upgrading
  5. After upgrading, test that Model.load_model works correctly with your existing models
  6. If using safe_mode=True, verify it now properly blocks unsafe deserialization from .h5 files
Caveat As this is a minor version upgrade within the 3.x series, backward compatibility is expected to be maintained; however, test your model loading workflows after upgrading

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-9905 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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