Keras Files

Security Fixes & Hardening

This release introduces critical security hardening for model loading and saving, alongside improvements to the JAX backend metadata handling.

• Disallow TFSMLayer deserialization in safe_mode (#22035)

  • Previously, TFSMLayer could load external TensorFlow SavedModels during deserialization without respecting Keras safe_mode. This could allow the execution of attacker-controlled graphs during model invocation.
  • TFSMLayer now enforces safe_mode by default. Deserialization via from_config() will raise a ValueError unless safe_mode=False is explicitly passed or keras.config.enable_unsafe_deserialization() is called.

• Fix Denial of Service (DoS) in KerasFileEditor (#21880)

  • Introduces validation for HDF5 dataset metadata to prevent "shape bomb" attacks.
  • Hardens the .keras file editor against malicious metadata that could cause dimension overflows or unbounded memory allocation (unbounded numpy allocation of multi-gigabyte tensors).

• Block External Links in HDF5 files (#22057)

  • Keras now explicitly disallows external links within HDF5 files during loading. This prevents potential security risks where a weight file could point to external system datasets.
  • Includes improved verification for H5 Groups and Datasets to ensure they are local and valid.

Backend-specific Improvements (JAX)

• Set mutable=True by default in nnx_metadata (#22074)
  • Updated the JAX backend logic to ensure that variables are treated as mutable by default in nnx_metadata.
  • This makes Keras 3.13.2 compatible with Flax 0.12.3 when the Keras NNX integration is enabled.

Saving & Serialization

• Improved H5IOStore Integrity (#22057)
  • Refactored H5IOStore and ShardedH5IOStore to remove unused, unverified methods.
  • Fixed key-ordering logic in sharded HDF5 stores to ensure consistent state loading across different environments.

Contributors

We would like to thank the following contributors for their security reports and code improvements: @0xManan, @HyperPS, @hertschuh, and @divyashreepathihalli.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/keras-team/keras/compare/v3.13.1...v3.13.2