Bug 2512413 (CVE-2026-12261) - CVE-2026-12261 nltk: NLTK: Resource poisoning via improper package archive extraction
Summary: CVE-2026-12261 nltk: NLTK: Resource poisoning via improper package archive ex...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-12261
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 2512476 2512477
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-08-07 06:41 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-08-15 08:27 UTC (History)
19 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-07 06:41:15 UTC
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.


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