CVE-2026-12261Improper Access Control in nltk/nltk
- 5.3MediumCVSS base score
- 0.21%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 89% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- YesPublic exploitsa reference or SSVC says so
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.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. A reference of the record is tagged as an exploit. CISA's SSVC rates its exploitation: a proof of concept is public.
Show the exploits1
References tagged exploit1 reference
Timeline
ID reserved
By @huntr_ai
- 53 days later
· 53 days later
Published
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| @huntr_aiCNA (assigner) | 3.0 | Medium5.3 | CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Analyzed | 3.1 | Medium6.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.21% · top 89% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: poc · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.3.
Affected products
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
References
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-54393 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-ffj6-66c4-86gw (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-12261)Record last updated .