CVE-2026-78680

Summary

NLTK versions before 3.10.3 fail to use validated absolute paths when invoking the Graphviz dot binary in dependencygraph.dot2img and AlignedSent.repr_svg, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code by placing a malicious dot binary in the search path or current working directory. Attackers can exploit bare-name binary resolution on Windows via the current working directory or on Unix-like systems via relative PATH entries to execute their binary instead of the legitimate Graphviz tool.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
nltknltk0 < 3.10.3affected
nltknltk3.10.3unaffected

Weaknesses

  • CWE-426: Untrusted Search Path

ADP Enrichment

CISA ADP Vulnrichment

  • SSVC:
  • Exploitation: poc
    • Automatable: no
    • Technical Impact: total

Additional References

References