NLTK: Missing Post-Download Integrity Verification Allows Malicious Package Injection
🔗 CVE IDs covered (1)
📋 Description
NLTK's package downloader in nltk/downloader.py does not verify file integrity after download and before extraction.
The download flow at lines 789-825:
- File is downloaded to a temp path via HTTP
- os.replace(tmp_filepath, filepath) moves it to the final location (line 799)
- Extraction begins via _unzip_iter() (line 825)
Between steps 2 and 3, there is no SHA-256 verification. The checksum logic exists in _pkg_status() (lines 982-1015) but it is only used BEFORE download as a status check ("is this package already installed and up-to-date?"). It is never called after download to verify the file that was actually received.
Attack vectors:
- MITM during HTTP download (NLTK downloads from http:// by default on some mirrors)
- Race condition on shared filesystems (attacker replaces file between os.replace and _unzip_iter)
- DNS poisoning redirecting to attacker-controlled server
PoC:
import nltk
import unittest.mock
import zipfile
import io
import os
# Create a malicious zip that will be "downloaded"
malicious_zip = io.BytesIO()
with zipfile.ZipFile(malicious_zip, 'w') as zf:
zf.writestr('punkt_tab/tokenizers/punkt_tab/english.pickle',
b'MALICIOUS PAYLOAD - attacker controlled content')
# Patch urllib to return our malicious zip
with unittest.mock.patch('urllib.request.urlopen') as mock_urlopen:
mock_response = unittest.mock.MagicMock()
mock_response.read.return_value = malicious_zip.getvalue()
mock_response.headers = {'Content-Length': str(len(malicious_zip.getvalue()))}
mock_urlopen.return_value = mock_response
# Download proceeds, no integrity check catches the swap
# nltk.download('punkt_tab') # Would install attacker payload
This is distinct from CVE-2024-39705 (pickle deserialization via download) and CVE-2025-14009 (zip-slip path traversal). Those address what happens AFTER extraction. This finding addresses the gap BEFORE extraction where integrity is never verified.
Suggested fix: After os.replace() and before _unzip_iter(), compute SHA-256 of the final file and compare against the expected checksum from the package index. Reject and delete the file if the hash does not match.
🎯 Affected products1
- pip/nltk:<= 3.9.2
🔗 References (9)
- https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-5wp5-5229-5g6q
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-12259
- https://github.com/nltk/nltk/pull/3449
- https://github.com/nltk/nltk/commit/0e26734a61094b628d93e26dc18dd7302567ac46
- https://github.com/nltk/nltk/releases/tag/3.9.3
- https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/nltk/PYSEC-2026-3729.yaml
- https://huntr.com/bounties/659ccf6d-12d4-4d4a-84c0-078633c35a5d
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-missing-post-download-integrity-verification
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-5wp5-5229-5g6q