CVE-2025-1944 picklescan ZIP archive manipulation attack leads to crash

Medium 5.3 Published 10 Mar 2025 Updated 29 Dec 2025

Attackers can bypass malicious model detection in PickleScan by manipulating ZIP headers, allowing malicious payloads to load despite scanner crashes.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: A user has to click or open something
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2025-1944?

CVE-2025-1944 is a medium-severity vulnerability in mmaitre314 picklescan, published on 10 Mar 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

picklescan before 0.0.23 is vulnerable to a ZIP archive manipulation attack that causes it to crash when attempting to extract and scan PyTorch model archives. By modifying the filename in the ZIP header while keeping the original filename in the directory listing, an attacker can make PickleScan raise a BadZipFile error. However, PyTorch's more forgiving ZIP implementation still allows the model to be loaded, enabling malicious payloads to bypass detection.

Weakness: CWE-345

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-1944?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including picklescan. It affects 1 product.

Package	Affected	Fixed in
`picklescan` PyPI	All versions	`0.0.23`
`picklescan` PyPI	All versions	`0.0.23`
`picklescan` PyPI	All versions	`0.0.23`

Products include Mmaitre314 Picklescan.

How do I fix CVE-2025-1944?

Upgrade picklescan to 0.0.23 or later.

Is CVE-2025-1944 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2025-1944 exists.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-7q5r-7gvp-wc82, PYSEC-2025-20.