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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2019-14751 json

NLTK Vulnerable To Path Traversal

published 2019-08-22 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-mr7p-25v2-35wr , PYSEC-2019-106 , EUVD-2019-0091

cvss
7.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
5.7%
EPSS 5.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 93%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

NLTK Downloader before 3.4.5 is vulnerable to a directory traversal, allowing attackers to write arbitrary files via a ../ (dot dot slash) in an NLTK package (ZIP archive) that is mishandled during extraction.

Patch / fix

  • pypi nltk 3.4.5
  • nltk nltk 3.4.5
  • nltk Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.4.5-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-14751

  • nltk Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 3.1-1ubuntu0.1
  • nltk Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 3.2.5-1ubuntu0.1
  • nltk Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2.0~b9-0ubuntu4.1~esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-14751

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • python-nltk openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.10.1-1.1
  • python-nltk openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.8.1-2.1
  • python-nltk openSUSE Tumbleweed 3.5-1.10
  • python-nltk Package Hub 15 SP2 3.7-bp152.3.3.1
  • python-nltk Package Hub 15 SP1 3.4.5-bp151.4.3.1
  • python-nltk openSUSE Leap 15.1 3.4.5-lp151.4.3.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:11469-1openSUSE-SU-2024:14103-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11241-1openSUSE-SU-2022:10040-1openSUSE-SU-2020:0440-1openSUSE-SU-2020:0436-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2019-14751 updated cvss 6.2

python-nltk: directory traversal vulnerability allows attackers to write arbitrary files via ../

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

5.67% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • salvatoresecurity.com https://salvatoresecurity.com/zip-slip-in-nltk-cve-2019-14751/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • github.com https://github.com/mssalvatore/CVE-2019-14751_PoC referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
GitHub 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi nltk
<3.4.5
3.4.5

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.