VulnerabilityReceived
CVE-2026-81723
NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a quadratic CPU exhaustion vulnerability in XMLCorpusView._read_xml_fragment() that rescans accumulated XML fragments on every 1 KiB block read.
MEDIUM 6.3EPSS 0.22%
Does this matter?
Lower severity and a low EPSS score (0.22%). Track it; it rarely justifies an emergency change on its own.
Description
NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a quadratic CPU exhaustion vulnerability in XMLCorpusView._read_xml_fragment() that rescans accumulated XML fragments on every 1 KiB block read. Attackers can provide malformed XML corpus files to cause severe CPU consumption and denial of service through affected readers like BNCCorpusReader.
- CVSS 4.0
- 6.3 MEDIUMCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/M
- EPSS
- 0.22% probability · 13th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-400
- Source
- disclosure@vulncheck.com
References
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.