DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12261

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Source
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-12261
Import Source
https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12261.json
JSON Data
https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12261
Upstream
Published
2026-08-07T07:16:26Z
Modified
2026-09-14T17:01:44Z
Severity
  • 6.5 (Medium) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N CVSS Calculator
Summary
[none]
Details

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.

References

Affected packages

Debian:12 / nltk

Package

Name
nltk
Purl
pkg:deb/debian/nltk?arch=source&distro=bookworm

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced version / All previous versions are affected

Affected versions

3.*
3.8-1
3.8.1-1
3.9.1-1
3.9.1-2
3.9.2-1
3.9.3-1
3.10.0-1
3.10.1-1
3.10.3-1

Ecosystem specific 

{
    "urgency": "not yet assigned"
}

Database specific

source 
"https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12261.json"

Debian:13 / nltk

Package

Name
nltk
Purl
pkg:deb/debian/nltk?arch=source&distro=trixie

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced version / All previous versions are affected

Affected versions

3.*
3.9.1-2
3.9.2-1
3.9.3-1
3.10.0-1
3.10.1-1
3.10.3-1

Ecosystem specific 

{
    "urgency": "not yet assigned"
}

Database specific

source 
"https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12261.json"

Debian:14 / nltk

Package

Name
nltk
Purl
pkg:deb/debian/nltk?arch=source&distro=forky

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced version / All previous versions are affected

Affected versions

3.*
3.9.1-2
3.9.2-1
3.9.3-1
3.10.0-1
3.10.1-1
3.10.3-1

Ecosystem specific 

{
    "urgency": "not yet assigned"
}

Database specific

source 
"https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-12261.json"