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MEDIUM

CVE-2026-65915

CVE-2026-65915 — NLTK before 3.10.0 Arbitrary File Read via FileSystemPathPointer

NLTK versions before 3.10.0 contain a logic bug in FileSystemPathPointer.open() where the sandbox validation check compares a normalized path against itself, making the security check permanently inert. Attackers can pass file:// URLs to nltk.data.load() to read arbitrary files accessible to the process user, including credentials and configuration files.

Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, VulnCheck

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Unreported

no source claims exploitation

EPSS

0%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

nltk

nltk

CVSS base

6.5

MEDIUM

CISA SSVC assessment

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

CISA

Exploitation

PoC

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

No

can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Partial

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

nltk

Products (1)

nltk

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

ScoreVersionSeverityExpl.ImpactSource
6.5CVSS 3.1MEDIUM——cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

  • CWE-284

Attack patterns reported against this CVE. The ATT&CK techniques below are inferred from its weakness class.

  • T1027.009Obfuscated Files or Information: Embedded Payloads
  • T1546.004Event Triggered Execution: .bash_profile and .bashrc
  • T1546.016Event Triggered Execution: Installer Packages

Detection

Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not rules we have tested.

  • Search application, proxy, and WAF logs for requests touching //.

References

2 on the record

Elsewhere on this site

  • nltkevery CVE for this vendor
  • CWE-284other pages naming this weakness

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

  • No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
  • No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
  • No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.