CVE-2025-14009: high-severity vulnerability in nltk/nltk
Zip Slip Vulnerability in nltk/nltk Leading to Remote Code Execution
Published · Updated
E-mail alert when it lands in KEV, gets a public PoC or its score goes up.
21Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 8.8epss 1.0%
A critical vulnerability exists in the NLTK downloader component of nltk/nltk, affecting all versions. The _unzip_iter function in nltk/downloader.py uses zipfile.extractall() without performing path validation or security checks. This allows attackers to craft malicious zip packages that, when downloaded and extracted by NLTK, can execute arbitrary code. The vulnerability arises because NLTK assumes all downloaded packages are trusted and extracts them without validation. If a malicious package contains Python files, such as __init__.py, these files are executed automatically upon import, leading to remote code execution. This issue can result in full system compromise, including file system access, network access, and potential persistence mechanisms.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Affected products
nltk · nltk/nltkRelated CVEs — nltk/nltk
In the same product, most dangerous first.
CVE-2021-3828HIGHInefficient Regular Expression Complexity in nltk/nltkEPSS 1.6%CVE-2021-3842HIGHInefficient Regular Expression Complexity in nltk/nltkEPSS 1.6%CVE-2026-0847HIGHPath Traversal in nltk/nltkEPSS 1.0%CVE-2026-0848CRITICALArbitrary Code Execution in NLTK StanfordSegmenter via Untrusted JAR LoadingEPSS 0.8%CVE-2026-0846HIGHArbitrary File Read via Absolute Path Input in nltk.util.filestring()EPSS 0.6%CVE-2026-12199HIGHUnauthenticated Denial of Service in nltk.app.wordnet_appEPSS 0.3%
References
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:10184https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-14009https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2440724https://huntr.com/bounties/49ecbc02-054e-4470-b2e0-b267936cc4e4https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2025/cve-2025-14009.json