CVE-2025-46560: vLLM Denial of Service Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-vc6m-hm49-g9qg",
  "modified" : "2026-07-17T16:14:18Z",
  "published" : "2025-04-29T16:43:10Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2025-46560" ],
  "summary" : "vLLM: Quadratic Time Complexity in Input Token Processing​ leads to denial of service",
  "details" : "### Summary\nA critical performance vulnerability has been identified in the input preprocessing logic of the multimodal tokenizer. The code dynamically replaces placeholder tokens (e.g., <|audio_*|>, <|image_*|>) with repeated tokens based on precomputed lengths. Due to ​​inefficient list concatenation operations​​, the algorithm exhibits ​​quadratic time complexity (O(n²))​​, allowing malicious actors to trigger resource exhaustion via specially crafted inputs.\n\n### Details\n​​Affected Component​​: input_processor_for_phi4mm function.\nhttps://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/blob/8cac35ba435906fb7eb07e44fe1a8c26e8744f4e/vllm/model_executor/models/phi4mm.py#L1182-L1197\n\nThe code modifies the input_ids list in-place using input_ids = input_ids[:i] + tokens + input_ids[i+1:]. Each concatenation operation copies the entire list, leading to O(n) operations per replacement. For k placeholders expanding to m tokens, total time becomes O(kmn), approximating O(n²) in worst-case scenarios.\n\n### PoC\nTest data demonstrates exponential time growth:\n```python\ntest_cases = [100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400]\nrun_times = [0.002, 0.007, 0.028, 0.136, 0.616, 2.707, 11.854]  # seconds\n```\nDoubling input size increases runtime by ~4x (consistent with O(n²)).\n\n### Impact\n​​Denial-of-Service (DoS):​​ An attacker could submit inputs with many placeholders (e.g., 10,000 <|audio_1|> tokens), causing CPU/memory exhaustion.\nExample: 10,000 placeholders → ~100 million operations.\n\n\n### Remediation Recommendations​\nPrecompute all placeholder positions and expansion lengths upfront.\nReplace dynamic list concatenation with a single preallocated array.\n```python\n# Pseudocode for O(n) solution\nnew_input_ids = []\nfor token in input_ids:\n    if token is placeholder:\n        new_input_ids.extend([token] * precomputed_length)\n    else:\n        new_input_ids.append(token)\n```",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "PyPI",
      "name" : "vllm"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0.8.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "0.8.5"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/security/advisories/GHSA-vc6m-hm49-g9qg"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-46560"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-vc6m-hm49-g9qg"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/vllm/PYSEC-2026-2022.yaml"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/blob/8cac35ba435906fb7eb07e44fe1a8c26e8744f4e/vllm/model_executor/models/phi4mm.py#L1182-L1197"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://pypi.org/project/vllm"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-1333" ],
    "severity" : "MODERATE",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2025-04-29T16:43:10Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2025-04-30T01:15:52Z"
  }
}