Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Aug 26, 2026· Updated Aug 26, 2026
NLTK 3.10.2 Regular Expression Denial of Service via tgrep
CVE-2026-80206
Description
NLTK before 3.10.3 contains a regular expression denial of service (ReDoS) vulnerability in the tgrep module. The _tgrep_node_action function compiles user-supplied regular expressions embedded in /regex/ pattern nodes and executes them via re.search against tree node labels without any validation or timeout. An attacker who controls the tgrep pattern (e.g., via tgrep_positions() or tgrep_compile() exposed to external input) can supply a pattern that triggers catastrophic backtracking, causing indefinite CPU saturation that blocks the Python process.
Affected products
1Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
2- github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-w3v8-gmh9-3wv7mitrevendor-advisory
- www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-3.10.2-regular-expression-denial-of-service-via-tgrepmitrethird-party-advisory
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