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  5. CVE-2026-12876

CVE-2026-12876: NLTK: Uncontrolled resource consumption in RecursiveDescentParser via ambiguous or left-recursive grammars

September 2, 2026

nltk.parse.RecursiveDescentParser (and SteppingRecursiveDescentParser) enumerate parses top-down with no bound on the number of recursive steps. A small, crafted context-free grammar makes a short input consume unbounded CPU (and/or exhaust the Python recursion stack), pinning a process indefinitely — a denial of service.

References

  • github.com/advisories/GHSA-ff5c-cp5c-9wjf
  • github.com/nltk/nltk/commit/43aaca1b9024138421c97f970bf13ee19ac8129d
  • github.com/nltk/nltk/pull/3649
  • github.com/nltk/nltk/releases/tag/v3.10.3
  • github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-ff5c-cp5c-9wjf
  • nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-12876

Code Behaviors & Features

Detect and mitigate CVE-2026-12876 with GitLab Dependency Scanning

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Affected versions

All versions before 3.10.3

Fixed versions

  • 3.10.3

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.10.3 or above.

Impact 5.3 MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Learn more about CVSS

Weakness

  • CWE-407: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity
  • CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion

Source file

pypi/nltk/CVE-2026-12876.yml

Spotted a mistake? Edit the file on GitLab.

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