Reference page — cumulative record through Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2026-65915

CVE-2026-65915HIGH

NLTK before 3.10.0 Arbitrary File Read via FileSystemPathPointer

  AV  AC  AT  PR  UI  VC  VI  VA   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   N   L   N   L   N   H   N   N    7.1   .0041   33.0     —

AFFECTED
  Product  Versions     Fixed
  nltk     unspecified  3.10.0

TIMELINE
  Jul 23  Reserved by VulnCheck
  Aug 22  Published (CNA: VulnCheck)
  Aug 31  EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-65915 (nltk). Public exploit reference added.

CWE-284 · CNA: VulnCheck · CVSS v4.0 · 2 references · NVD status: Analyzed

Description

NLTK versions before 3.10.0 contain a logic bug in FileSystemPathPointer.open() where the sandbox validation check compares a normalized path against itself, making the security check permanently inert. Attackers can pass file:// URLs to nltk.data.load() to read arbitrary files accessible to the process user, including credentials and configuration files.

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
Date	Event	Detail
July 23, 2026	Reserved	Reserved by VulnCheck
August 22, 2026	Published	Published (CNA: VulnCheck)
August 31, 2026	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-65915 (nltk). Public exploit reference added.

Affected

Affected products and packages — 1 row
Vendor	Product / Package	Ecosystem	Version introduced	Fixed
nltk	nltk	—	—	3.10.0

Weaknesses

CWE-284

References (2)

https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-72r2-7mfr-5xr9 [Exploit, Vendor Advisory]
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-arbitrary-file-read-via-filesystempathpointer [Third Party Advisory]

Authoritative record: CVE-2026-65915 at cve.org

Vendors: nltk

Weaknesses: CWE-284

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2026-65915 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.