NLTK versions before 3.10.3 contain a quadratic CPU exhaustion vulnerability in XMLCorpusView._read_xml_fragment() that rescans accumulated XML fragments on every 1 KiB block read. Attackers can provide malformed XML corpus files to cause severe CPU consumption and denial of service through affected readers like BNCCorpusReader.
CVSS Details
- CVSS 4.0 Base Score: 6.3 (MEDIUM)
- CVSS 4.0 Vector: (CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X)
- CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 3.7
- CVSS 3.1 Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
Prioritise with Active Threat Intelligence
With curated Threat Intelligence, you can see which vulnerabilities truly put you at risk, prioritize what matters most, and act before attackers do.
Explore Intelligence Hub
