CVE-2026-33236GHSA-469J-VMHF-R6V7PYSEC-2026-2237
NLTK has a Downloader Path Traversal Vulnerability (AFO) - Arbitrary File Overwrite
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 3.9.4
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
CISA's decision points: whether it is exploited, whether attacks can be automated, and how much control an attacker gets. Assessed (SSVC 2.0.3).What do these mean? →
- Exploitation: poc
- Automatable: yes
- Technical impact: partial
Summary
NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) is a suite of open source Python modules, data sets, and tutorials supporting research and development in Natural Language Processing. In versions 3.9.3 and prior, the NLTK downloader does not validate the `subdir` and `id` attributes when processing remote XML index files. Attackers can control a remote XML index server to provide malicious values containing path traversal sequences (such as `../`), which can lead to arbitrary directory creation, arbitrary file creation, and arbitrary file overwrite. Commit 89fe2ec2c6bae6e2e7a46dad65cc34231976ed8a patches the issue.
Timeline
- CVE published
- CISA SSVC assessment
Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial
- Record last updated
Affected versions
- nltk nltk
through 3.9.3
- nltkPyPI
through 3.9.2
- nltkPyPI
fixed in 3.9.4