Description
NLTK 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.
Published: 2026-08-27
Score: 6.3 Medium
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

No analysis available yet.

Remediation

No remediation available yet.

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

No advisories yet.

History

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description NLTK 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.
Title NLTK before 3.10.3 Regular Expression Denial of Service via Pl196xCorpusReader
First Time appeared Nltk
Nltk nltk
Weaknesses CWE-400
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:nltk:nltk:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Nltk
Nltk nltk
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 3.7, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

cvssV4_0

{'score': 6.3, 'vector': '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'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: VulnCheck

Published:

Updated: 2026-08-27T14:51:18.082Z

Reserved: 2026-08-27T11:15:29.420Z

Link: CVE-2026-81725

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-08-27T17:21:03.247

Modified: 2026-08-27T17:21:03.247

Link: CVE-2026-81725

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses
  • CWE-400

    Uncontrolled Resource Consumption