NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) is a suite of open source Python modules, data sets, and tutorials supporting research and development in Natural Language Processing. In versions 3.9.3 and prior, the NLTK downloader does not validate the `subdir` and `id` attributes when processing remote XML index files. Attackers can control a remote XML index server to provide malicious values containing path traversal sequences (such as `../`), which can lead to arbitrary directory creation, arbitrary file creation, and arbitrary file overwrite. Commit 89fe2ec2c6bae6e2e7a46dad65cc34231976ed8a patches the issue.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
Advisories
| Source | ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
Github GHSA |
GHSA-469j-vmhf-r6v7 | NLTK has a Downloader Path Traversal Vulnerability (AFO) - Arbitrary File Overwrite |
Fixes
Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
References
History
Fri, 20 Mar 2026 23:00:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) is a suite of open source Python modules, data sets, and tutorials supporting research and development in Natural Language Processing. In versions 3.9.3 and prior, the NLTK downloader does not validate the `subdir` and `id` attributes when processing remote XML index files. Attackers can control a remote XML index server to provide malicious values containing path traversal sequences (such as `../`), which can lead to arbitrary directory creation, arbitrary file creation, and arbitrary file overwrite. Commit 89fe2ec2c6bae6e2e7a46dad65cc34231976ed8a patches the issue. | |
| Title | NLTK has a Downloader Path Traversal Vulnerability (AFO) - Arbitrary File Overwrite | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-22 | |
| References |
| |
| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
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Projects
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_M
Published:
Updated: 2026-03-20T22:47:10.308Z
Reserved: 2026-03-18T02:42:27.508Z
Link: CVE-2026-33236
No data.
Status : Received
Published: 2026-03-20T23:16:47.007
Modified: 2026-03-20T23:16:47.007
Link: CVE-2026-33236
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
No data.
Weaknesses
Github GHSA