High severity · published Jul 24, 2026
CVE-2025-71408
NLTK < 3.9.3 Eval Injection via collocations.py Command-Line Arguments
7.8
CVSS
0.3%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) before version 3.9.3 contains an eval injection vulnerability in the nltk.collocations module that allows an attacker who controls command-line arguments to execute arbitrary Python code. When collocations.py is invoked directly, the __main__ block passes command-line arguments directly to eval() as suffixes of BigramAssocMeasures without allowlist validation or sanitization, enabling an attacker to supply a Python expression that escapes the intended attribute lookup and executes arbitrary code including OS commands via the os module.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.3% · higher than 18% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
NT
ntlk · ntlk
before 3.9.3 · source: vendor
NL
Nltk · Nltk
before 3.9.3 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-71408
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-71408
technical-description
https://aydinnyunus.github.io/2026/06/07/command-injection-nltk-collocations-eval/
release-notes
https://github.com/nltk/nltk/releases/tag/3.9.3
issue-tracking
https://github.com/nltk/nltk/pull/3465
patch
https://github.com/nltk/nltk/commit/66f14096d952ec8f04934f515e027534bd4eb0ac
third-party-advisory
https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-eval-injection-via-collocations-py-command-line-arguments
