CVE-2026-81725
Description
A flaw was found in NLTK, specifically within the Pl196xCorpusReader component. A remote attacker can exploit this by supplying malformed Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) blocks containing numerous unmatched opening tags. This triggers a regular expression denial of service (ReDoS) vulnerability, causing quadratic CPU consumption and leading to a denial of service.
Statement
This impact flaw in NLTK's Pl196xCorpusReader can lead to a denial of service. When processing specially crafted TEI blocks containing many unmatched opening tags, the library's regular expression engine can consume excessive CPU resources. This vulnerability primarily affects applications that process untrusted TEI data using NLTK's text processing APIs, potentially impacting service availability.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.9 | N/A | 3.7 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | High |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | Low |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
Attackers can create crafted inputs that intentionally cause the regular expression to use excessive backtracking in a way that causes the CPU consumption to spike.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not sure what something means? Check out our Security Glossary.
Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.
