{"id":"CVE-2020-5215","url":"https://www.cyber-defence.io/tools/cve/CVE-2020-5215","generatedAt":"2026-10-28T04:17:05.767Z","title":"This issue can lead to denial of service in inference/training where a malicious attacker can send a data point which contains a string instead of a tf.float16 value.","description":"In TensorFlow before 1.15.2 and 2.0.1, converting a string (from Python) to a tf.float16 value results in a segmentation fault in eager mode as the format checks for this use case are only in the graph mode. This issue can lead to denial of service in inference/training where a malicious attacker can send a data point which contains a string instead of a tf.float16 value. Similar effects can be obtained by manipulating saved models and checkpoints whereby replacing a scalar tf.float16 value with a scalar string will trigger this issue due to automatic conversions. This can be easily reproduced by tf.constant(\"hello\", tf.float16), if eager execution is enabled. This issue is patched in TensorFlow 1.15.1 and 2.0.1 with this vulnerability patched. TensorFlow 2.1.0 was released after we fixed the issue, thus it is not affected. Users are encouraged to switch to TensorFlow 1.15.1, 2.0.1 or 2.1.0.","published":"2020-01-28T22:15:11.000Z","lastModified":"2026-06-17T03:21:02.000Z","status":"Modified","sourceIdentifier":"security-advisories@github.com","cvss":{"version":"3.1","score":7.5,"severity":"HIGH","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"},"cwe":["CWE-754","CWE-20"],"affected":["google/tensorflow"],"epss":{"score":0.00588,"percentile":0.47934,"date":"2026-10-27","history":[]},"kev":{"listed":false},"exploits":{"count":0,"verified":false,"firstPublished":null,"source":"Exploit-DB (https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb)","entries":[]},"verdict":{"level":"high","text":"High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.59%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit."},"changes":[],"references":[{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/commit/5ac1b9e24ff6afc465756edf845d2e9660bd34bf","tags":["Patch"],"source":"security-advisories@github.com"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v1.15.2","tags":["Release Notes"],"source":"security-advisories@github.com"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v2.0.1","tags":["Release Notes"],"source":"security-advisories@github.com"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/security/advisories/GHSA-977j-xj7q-2jr9","tags":["Exploit","Patch","Third Party Advisory"],"source":"security-advisories@github.com"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/commit/5ac1b9e24ff6afc465756edf845d2e9660bd34bf","tags":["Patch"],"source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v1.15.2","tags":["Release Notes"],"source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v2.0.1","tags":["Release Notes"],"source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"},{"url":"https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/security/advisories/GHSA-977j-xj7q-2jr9","tags":["Exploit","Patch","Third Party Advisory"],"source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"}],"sources":{"nvd":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-5215","epss":"https://www.first.org/epss/","kev":"https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","exploitdb":"https://www.exploit-db.com/"},"licence":"CC BY 4.0 — link back to the CVE Explorer if you publish the results; upstream data remains subject to its own terms."}