CVE-2026-78683

Description

NLTK before 3.10.0 (affected versions <=3.9.4) contains an unsafe pickle deserialization vulnerability in the TransitionParser.parse() method (nltk/parse/transitionparser.py). The method calls pickle_load() with the default restricted=False, routing deserialization through WarningUnpickler, which does not override find_class() and therefore permits arbitrary class resolution. When an application loads an attacker-crafted model file, embedded pickle gadget chains execute arbitrary Python code with the privileges of the user running the application. NLTK provides a RestrictedUnpickler for safe deserialization, but it is not used by production code paths. Fixed in 3.10.0.

• How can I get the fixes?
• What do statuses mean?

References

• MITRE
• NVD
• Launchpad
• Debian

Other references

• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-78683
• https://github.com/cveproject/cvelistv5/tree/main/cves/2026/78xxx/cve-2026-78683.json
• https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/ghsa-rhp5-r9x4-f5g2
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-remote-code-execution-via-unsafe-pickle-deserialization