What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-79674: NLTK 3.10.2 Path Traversal via corpus-reader constructors

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.2 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2026-08-25 · updated 2026-08-31
• Weakness: CWE-73

Description

NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a path sandbox bypass vulnerability in corpus-reader constructors that allows attackers to read files outside the intended data root. Attackers can supply arbitrary corpus root paths to LinThesaurusCorpusReader and PanLexLiteCorpusReader constructors to access filesystem content and SQLite databases outside the pathsec sandbox boundary.

Affected products

• nltk: before 3.10.3 — fixed in 3.10.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: nltk 3.10.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-3gq4-3j92-5w49
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-path-traversal-via-corpus-reader-constructors
• https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-3gq4-3j92-5w49

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