CVE-2026-33236
NLTK has a Downloader Path Traversal Vulnerability (AFO) - Arbitrary File Overwrite
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.
How to fix CVE-2026-33236
No fixed version has been published yet. Mitigate by removing the affected package or applying upstream guidance from the references below.
- —no fix listed
- —no fix listed
Is CVE-2026-33236 being exploited?
Low — EPSS is 0.0%, meaning exploitation activity has not been observed at scale.
Affected packages (2)
- from 0
- from 0, <= 3.9.2
CVSS scores
| Source | Version | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| osv | CVSS 3.1 | HIGH8.1 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H |