Answer in brief
CVE-2026-78681 records a High severity (CVSS 7.5) vulnerability in NLTK before 3.10.3 Entity Expansion DoS via ElementTree. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps nltk/nltk (generic), nltk (pip), nltk (pypi). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 7.5. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps nltk/nltk (generic), nltk (pip), nltk (pypi). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Product | Affected versions | Fixed versions |
|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:a:nltk:nltk:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | Not reported | Not reported |
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| nltk/nltkgeneric | >=0 <3.10.3 | 3.10.3 |
| nltkpip | <=3.10.2 | 3.10.3 |
| nltkpypi | >=0 <3.10.3 | 3.10.3 |
Published upstream
Aug 25, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Sep 8, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Aug 25, 2026
NLTK versions before 3.10.3 use xml.etree.ElementTree to parse XML in multiple modules, which honors entity declarations in document DTDs. Attackers can craft XML payloads with nested entity declarations that expand from hundreds of bytes to megabytes in memory, causing denial of service.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.