Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.1

CVE-2026-81727 json

NLTK before 3.10.3 Hardlink File Overwrite via downloader

published 2mo ago modified 2mo ago also EUVD-2026-67077 , GHSA-f794-5jv7-7672 , PYSEC-2026-3741

cvss
7.1
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 8%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a filesystem containment bypass vulnerability in the Downloader.download and Downloader.incr_download methods that allows attackers to overwrite files outside the install root through pre-existing hardlinks. Attackers with write access to a shared downloader directory can create hardlinks pointing to outside-root files that are then overwritten during normal package extraction, mutating files outside the intended install tree.

Patch / fix

  • pypi nltk 3.10.3
  • nltk nltk 3.10.3
  • nltk Debian 14 3.10.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-81727

Is CVE-2026-81727 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-81727 updated cvss 7.1

nltk: NLTK: Filesystem containment bypass allows local file overwrite

  • Red Hat Exploit Intelligence exploit-intelligence-tech-preview/vulnerability-analysis-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Lightspeed Core lightspeed-core/rag-tool-cpu-rhel9, lightspeed-core/lightspeed-stack-rhel9, lightspeed-core/rag-tool-cuda-12.9-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-service-api-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 ansible-automation-platform-25/lightspeed-chatbot-rhel8
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) rhoai/odh-ogx-core-rhel9
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI 2.25 rhoai/odh-ta-lmes-job-rhel9 1791553527, rhoai/odh-llama-stack-core-rhel9 1791873747, rhoai/odh-pipeline-runtime-pytorch-llmcompressor-cuda-py312-rhel9 1791867208, rhoai/odh-workbench-jupyter-pytorch-llmcompressor-cuda-py312-rhel9 1791867189
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:87410
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.3 rhoai/odh-llama-stack-core-rhel9 1789121286
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:73987
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4 rhoai/odh-ta-lmes-job-rhel9 1791470318, rhoai/odh-llama-stack-core-rhel9 1790958470, rhoai/odh-trustyai-garak-lls-provider-dsp-rhel9 1791785804, rhoai/odh-trustyai-nemo-guardrails-server-rhel9 1791556128
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:84734
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.5 rhoai/odh-ta-lmes-job-rhel9 1788935863, rhoai/odh-trustyai-garak-lls-provider-dsp-rhel9 1791953275, rhoai/odh-trustyai-nemo-guardrails-server-rhel9 1791566631
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:69539
show 2 more
  • Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-ocp-rag-rhel9, openshift-lightspeed-tech-preview/lightspeed-rag-tool-rhel9
    not affected: vulnerable code not in execute path
  • Red Hat OpenShift AI 2.25 rhoai/odh-rhel9-operator 1792570619, rhoai/odh-vllm-cpu-rhel9 1792018436, rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9 1791853525, rhoai/odh-modelmesh-rhel9 1790881700, rhoai/odh-operator-bundle 1792571069, rhoai/odh-vllm-cuda-rhel9 1791358976, +62 more Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.3 rhoai/odh-cli-rhel9 1790070206, rhoai/rhai-cli-rhel9 1790070206, rhoai/odh-mlflow-rhel9 1789653606, rhoai/odh-trainer-rhel9 1790136369, rhoai/odh-maas-api-rhel9 1790131842, rhoai/odh-mlserver-rhel9 1789121365, +76 more Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4 rhoai/odh-cli-rhel9 1791509689, rhoai/rhai-cli-rhel9 1791509689, rhoai/odh-automl-rhel9 1791535789, rhoai/odh-mlflow-rhel9 1791865967, rhoai/odh-autorag-rhel9 1791557539, rhoai/odh-trainer-rhel9 1791869783, +96 more Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.5 rhoai/odh-cli-rhel9 1789525149, rhoai/odh-cli-rhel9 1791945905, rhoai/rhai-cli-rhel9 1789525149, rhoai/rhai-cli-rhel9 1791945905, rhoai/odh-automl-rhel9 1789363166, rhoai/odh-automl-rhel9 1791916705, +229 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.19% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 8% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-f794-5jv7-7672 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
CNA 4.0 6.9 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi nltk
<3.10.3
3.10.3

Affected products

  • nltk nltk

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
  • CWE-61 UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
  • CWE-73 External Control of File Name or Path

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of nltk/nltk published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.