GitHub Advisoryadvisory · PyPI

GHSA-ffj6-66c4-86gw NLTK downloader allows cross-package resource and model poisoning

MEDIUM Published 2026-08-07 Modified 2026-10-02 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2026-12261
Ecosystem
PyPI
Packages
nltk
Severity
Moderate
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Weaknesses
CWE-284
Reviewed
2026-10-02

Affected packages

• PyPI nltk: < 3.10.0 → fixed in 3.10.0

Description

A vulnerability in `nltk.downloader` in nltk/nltk versions <= 3.9.4 allows for cross-package resource and model poisoning. The downloader extracts package archives into shared namespaces such as `corpora/` and `taggers/` instead of package-isolated roots, and validates package integrity only after the archive has been written and extracted. This design flaw enables one package to overwrite another package's trusted resources within the same namespace, making the changes immediately active through ordinary NLTK APIs. This issue persists across fresh interpreter restarts and can affect downstream workflows, including machine learning pipelines and reproducibility-sensitive environments.

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2026-12261 A vulnerability in `nltk.downloader` in nltk/nltk versions <= 3.9.4 allows for cross-package resource and model poisoning. vulnerability

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-284 Improper Access Control weakness

References