NLTK version 3.9.4 is vulnerable to a path traversal attack due to an incomplete fix for GitHub Issue #3504. The `_UNSAFE_NO_PROTOCOL_RE` regex in `nltk/data.py` checks for literal `../` sequences but fails to account for percent-encoded traversal sequences such as `..%2f`. The `url2pathname()` function decodes these sequences after the validation step, allowing an attacker to bypass the protection. This vulnerability enables an attacker to read arbitrary files accessible to the Python process by controlling the resource name parameter passed to `nltk.data.load()` or `nltk.data.find()`. The issue affects applications that rely on NLTK for resource loading, including NLP web applications, Jupyter notebooks, and CLI tools. The default `pathsec.ENFORCE=False` setting exacerbates the impact by not blocking the file read at the `open()` stage.
| Métrique | Valeur | Interprétation |
|---|---|---|
|
AV (Vecteur d'Attaque)
Attack Vector
|
Network (N)
|
Exploit possible à distance via réseau (HTTP, API, etc.) |
|
AC (Complexité d'Attaque)
Attack Complexity
|
Low (L)
|
Peu de conditions requises pour exploiter |
|
PR (Privilèges Requis)
Privileges Required
|
None (N)
|
Aucune authentification requise |
|
UI (Interaction Utilisateur)
User Interaction
|
None (N)
|
Aucune interaction utilisateur nécessaire |
|
S (Périmètre)
Scope
|
Unchanged (U)
|
Impact reste dans le périmètre du composant compromis |
|
C (Impact Confidentialité)
Confidentiality Impact
|
High (H)
|
Divulgation totale d'informations |
|
I (Impact Intégrité)
Integrity Impact
|
None (N)
|
Aucune modification de données possible |
|
A (Impact Disponibilité)
Availability Impact
|
None (N)
|
Aucune interruption de service |
nltk: Arbitrary File Read via Path Traversal in nltk.data.load() through Percent-Encoded Sequences
Path Traversal via Percent-Encoding in nltk.data.find() and nltk.data.load()