GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-835 vulnerability in pillow. A fix is available for pillow — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Pillow has a PDF Parsing Trailer Infinite Loop (DoS)
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 379,145 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
pillowReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
An attacker can supply a malicious PDF that causes the process to hang indefinitely, consuming 100% CPU and making the application unresponsive.
Patches
Patched version: 12.2.0.
PdfParser (introduced in Pillow 4.2.0) follows Prev pointers in PDF trailers to read cross-reference sections. If a trailer's Prev pointer references an offset that has already been processed — either pointing to itself or forming a longer cycle — the parser enters an infinite loop. Pillow now tracks previously processed trailer offsets and raises an error if a cycle is detected.
Workarounds
Use any version but the affected versions: >= 4.2.0, < 12.2.0
Resources
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | pillow | ≥ 4.2.0&&< 12.2.0 | 12.2.0pip install --upgrade 'pillow==12.2.0' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pillow, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pillow to 12.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat AI Inference Server 3.3 | rhaiis/model-opt-cuda-rhel9:1778244559 | RHSA-2026:16008 |
| Red Hat AI Inference Server 3.3 | rhaiis/vllm-rocm-rhel9:1778244531 | RHSA-2026:16009 |
| Red Hat AI Inference Server 3.3 | rhaiis/vllm-cuda-rhel9:1778274666 | RHSA-2026:16030 |
| Red Hat AI Inference Server 3.4 | rhaii/vllm-spyre-rhel9:1787151840 | RHSA-2026:57387 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-r73j-pqj5-w3x7 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.