NLTK before 3.10.3 Regular Expression Denial of Service via Pl196xCorpusReader

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-81725
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerVulnCheck
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-27 17:21:03 UTC
Updated2026-08-27 17:21:03 UTC
DescriptionNLTK before 3.10.3 contains a regular expression denial of service vulnerability in Pl196xCorpusReader that allows attackers to cause quadratic CPU consumption by supplying malformed TEI blocks with many unmatched opening tags. Attackers can exploit lazy regex patterns in the read_block method through public APIs like words() and tagged_words() to force repeated rescans and achieve near-quadratic runtime growth.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v4.0 6.3 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Problem Types: CWE-400 | CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
4.0[email protected]Secondary6.3MEDIUMCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/C...
4.0CNACVSS6.3MEDIUMCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
3.1[email protected]Primary3.7LOWCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
3.1CNACVSS3.7LOWCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CVSS v4.0 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Attack Requirements
Present
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
Sub Conf.
None
Sub Integrity
None
Sub Availability
None

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Nltk Nltk affected 3.10.3 semver Not specified
CNA Nltk Nltk unaffected 3.10.3 semver Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-8mpw-7fpc-4gqj [email protected] github.com
www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-3.10.3-regular-expression-denial-of-se... [email protected] www.vulncheck.com
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NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

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