Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Moderate 2026-08-25T15:16:01 nltk: NLTK: Information disclosure via path traversal with symlink bypass 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N CWE-22

NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a path traversal vulnerability in corpus readers that reopen root-derived paths using built-in open() instead of nltk.pathsec.open(), allowing symlinks to escape trusted roots. Attackers who stage symlinked corpus files under a trusted data root can disclose outside-root content through normal corpus reader methods like channels(), domains(), and synonyms().

A flaw was found in NLTK. This path traversal vulnerability allows attackers to bypass security measures by using symbolic links within trusted data roots. By staging specially crafted symlinked corpus files, an attacker can disclose sensitive information from outside the intended data directories. This could lead to unauthorized access to confidential data.

A path traversal vulnerability exists in NLTK corpus readers that reopen root-derived paths using built-in open() instead of nltk.pathsec.open(). When processing corpus operations like channels(), domains(), or synonyms(), the application fails to enforce path restrictions on symbolic links within data roots. An attacker capable of staging crafted symlinks in a trusted corpus directory can bypass path controls to disclose arbitrary readable files outside the corpus root. File access remains bounded by local OS discretionary access controls and host container security parameters. Restrict local write permissions on NLTK data and corpus directories to prevent unauthorized staging of symlinked files, or ensure corpus file paths are validated against trusted roots before invoking corpus reader retrieval methods. Exploit Intelligence Out of support scope exploit-intelligence-tech-preview/vulnerability-analysis-rhel9 Lightspeed Core Fix deferred lightspeed-core/lightspeed-stack-rhel9 Lightspeed Core Fix deferred lightspeed-core/rag-tool-cpu-rhel9 Lightspeed Core Fix deferred lightspeed-core/rag-tool-cuda-12.9-rhel9 OpenShift Lightspeed Fix deferred openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-ocp-rag-rhel9 OpenShift Lightspeed Fix deferred openshift-lightspeed/lightspeed-service-api-rhel9 OpenShift Lightspeed Fix deferred openshift-lightspeed-tech-preview/lightspeed-rag-tool-rhel9 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 Out of support scope ansible-automation-platform-25/lightspeed-chatbot-rhel8 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-llama-stack-core-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-ogx-core-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-pipeline-runtime-pytorch-llmcompressor-cuda-py312-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-ta-lmes-job-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-trustyai-garak-lls-provider-dsp-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-trustyai-nemo-guardrails-server-rhel9 Red Hat OpenShift AI (RHOAI) Fix deferred rhoai/odh-workbench-jupyter-pytorch-llmcompressor-cuda-py312-rhel9 https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-79676 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-79676 https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-p4rw-rvv2-7xwr https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-path-traversal-via-symlink-bypass