GHSA-848c-c2cx-j7qx CVE-2025-71408 PYSEC-2026-3657
NLTK vulnerable to Eval Injection via collocations CLI arguments
- Severity
- 0.0 / 10
- High · CVSS 4.0
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.27%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 18.49% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-95 Improper Neutralization of Directives in Dynamically Evaluated Code ('Eval Injection')
- Fix
3.9.3- Upgrade nltk to this version or later
Description
NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) before version 3.9.3 contains an eval injection vulnerability in the nltk.collocations module that allows an attacker who controls command-line arguments to execute arbitrary Python code. When collocations.py is invoked directly, the main block passes command-line arguments directly to eval() as suffixes of BigramAssocMeasures without allowlist validation or sanitization, enabling an attacker to supply a Python expression that escapes the intended attribute lookup and executes arbitrary code including OS commands via the os module.
Affected versions
PyPI
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| nltk | < 3.9.3 |
3.9.3 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
nltk PyPI → 3.9.3
- pip
pip install --upgrade "nltk>=3.9.3"- poetry
poetry add "nltk>=3.9.3"- uv
uv add "nltk>=3.9.3"
Severity breakdown
CVSS 4.0 0.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- Attack vector
- Local
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Confidentiality (vulnerable system)
- High
- Integrity (vulnerable system)
- High
- Availability (vulnerable system)
- High
- Confidentiality (subsequent systems)
- None
- Integrity (subsequent systems)
- None
- Availability (subsequent systems)
- None
CVSS 3.1 7.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Local
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-95: Improper Neutralization of Directives in Dynamically Evaluated Code ('Eval Injection')
The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes code syntax before using the input in a dynamic evaluation call (e.g. "eval").
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design, Implementation: If possible, refactor your code so that it does not need to use eval() at all.
- Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
- Implementation: Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180, CWE-181). Make sure that your application does not inadvertently decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked. Use libraries such as the OWASP ESAPI Canonicalization control. Consider performing repeated canonicalization until your input does not change any more. This will avoid double-decoding and similar scenarios, but it might inadvertently modify inputs that are allowed to contain properly-encoded dangerous content.
- Implementation: For Python programs, it is frequently encouraged to use the ast.literal_eval() function instead of eval, since it is intentionally designed to avoid executing code. However, an adversary could still cause excessive memory or stack consumption via deeply nested structures [REF-1372], so the python documentation discourages use of ast.literal_eval() on untrusted data [REF-1373].
References
Advisories
Exploits and evidence
Packages
Other links
- github.com/nltk/nltk/pull/3465
- github.com/nltk/nltk/commit/66f14096d952ec8f04934f515e027534bd4eb0ac
- aydinnyunus.github.io/2026/06/07/command-injection-nltk-collocations-eval
- github.com/nltk/nltk/releases/tag/3.9.3
- github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/nltk/PYSEC-2026-3657.yaml
- vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-eval-injection-via-collocations-py-command-line-argu…
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-j456-xh4h-cpf2 NLTK: WekaClassifier passes an unvalidated caller-controlled model path to the weka JVM, bypassing nltk.pathsec containment | High | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-ff5c-cp5c-9wjf NLTK: Uncontrolled resource consumption in RecursiveDescentParser via ambiguous or left-recursive grammars | Medium | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-f794-5jv7-7672 NLTK: Downloader.download follows hardlinks and overwrites outside-root files | High | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-8mgp-746c-j5xp NLTK: Model-artifact APIs bypass pathsec and touch files outside allowed roots | High | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-8mpw-7fpc-4gqj NLTK: Pl196xCorpusReader has quadratic ReDoS on malformed TEI blocks | Low | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-cw6x-m8jw-qmrh NLTK: Uncontrolled recursion in nltk.featstruct.FeatStructReader causes unhandled RecursionError (DoS) via deeply nested feature-structure input | Medium | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-vp2x-qp44-57v7 NLTK: Quadratic CPU Exhaustion in `XMLCorpusView._read_xml_fragment()` | Low | Also affects nltk |
| GHSA-ww6m-cw3f-q94g NLTK: Quadratic-time DoS in PorterStemmer via long runs of 'y' | High | Also affects nltk |
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