CVE-2026-126298

NLTK before 3.10.4 Quadratic CPU Denial of Service via Tree.chomsky_normal_form

Published Nov 13, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 8.7 High EPSS n/a KEV · Not listed

Description

NLTK before 3.10.4 contains a denial of service vulnerability in Tree.chomsky_normal_form that allows remote attackers to exhaust CPU through quadratic-time right-factor binarization using list.pop(0). Attackers can supply a wide flat treebank tree parsed by Tree.fromstring to force tens of seconds of single-threaded CPU consumption, blocking the processing thread.

Affected Products

Default status is the baseline for the product, each version can override it (e.g. patched versions marked unaffected).

Vendor Product Default status Versions

nltk

unaffected

Version	Status	Constraints
`0`	affected	< 3.10.4
`3.10.4`	unaffected	—

No data.

No data available yet.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

Advisories

No advisories available

Metrics

Attack Vector Network

Attack Complexity Low

Privileges Required None

Attack Requirements None

User Interaction None

Vulnerable System Confidentiality Impact None

Vulnerable System Integrity Impact None

Vulnerable System Availability Impact High

Subsequent System Confidentiality Impact None

Subsequent System Integrity Impact None

Subsequent System Availability Impact None

Attack Vector Network

Attack Complexity Low

Privileges Required None

Scope Unchanged

Confidentiality Impact None

Integrity Impact None

Availability Impact High

User Interaction None

No CVSS v3.0

No CVSS v2

This CVE is not in the KEV list.

No EPSS score available.

Key SSVC decision points have not yet been added.

References

Link	Providers
https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-r53h-rw34-8h97
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-3.10.4-quadratic-cpu-denial-of-service-via-tree-chomsky-normal-form

History

Nov 13, 2026 9:45 AM Description updated. Title updated. First appearance in the feed. Weaknesses updated. Affected versions updated. Affected vendors updated. Added references. Scoring metrics updated View changes

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
Description		NLTK before 3.10.4 contains a denial of service vulnerability in Tree.chomsky_normal_form that allows remote attackers to exhaust CPU through quadratic-time right-factor binarization using list.pop(0). Attackers can supply a wide flat treebank tree parsed by Tree.fromstring to force tens of seconds of single-threaded CPU consumption, blocking the processing thread.
Title		NLTK before 3.10.4 Quadratic CPU Denial of Service via Tree.chomsky_normal_form
First Time appeared		Nltk Nltk nltk
Weaknesses		CWE-400
CPEs		cpe:2.3:a:nltk:nltk::::::::
Vendors & Products		Nltk Nltk nltk
References		https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-r53h-rw34-8h97 https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-3.10.4-quadratic-cpu-denial-of-service-via-tree-chomsky-normal-form
Metrics		cvssV3_1 `{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}` cvssV4_0 `{'score': 8.7, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}`