{"id":"CVE-2026-66393","title":"NLTK versions before 3.9.4 contain an unbounded recursion vulnerability in JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj() that allows attackers to cause denial of service by supplying deeply nested JSON structures","summary":"NLTK versions before 3.9.4 contain an unbounded recursion vulnerability in JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj() that allows attackers to cause denial of service by supplying deeply nested JSON structures. Attackers can craft JSON payloads exce…","severity":"high","cvss":7.5,"cvssVector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","cwe":["CWE-674"],"published":"2026-08-22","updated":"2026-08-22","source":"NVD","sourceUrl":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-66393","references":[{"url":"https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-rf74-v2fm-23pw","label":"disclosure@vulncheck.com"},{"url":"https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-denial-of-service-via-jsontaggeddecoder","label":"disclosure@vulncheck.com"},{"url":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-66393"},{"url":"https://github.com/nltk/nltk/commit/00cdcd392142e6c745e7120c8d50a24127df5fad"},{"url":"https://github.com/nltk/nltk"},{"url":"https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/nltk/PYSEC-2026-3724.yaml"}],"tags":["nvd","osv","pip"],"ingestedAt":"2026-08-23T04:42:15.429Z","epss":0.00363,"epssPercentile":0.30185,"aliases":["GHSA-rf74-v2fm-23pw","PYSEC-2026-3724"],"ecosystem":"pip","vendor":"nltk","product":"nltk","affected":["nltk < 3.9.4"],"patched":["nltk 3.9.4"],"slug":"CVE-2026-66393","body":"## Overview\n\nNLTK versions before 3.9.4 contain an unbounded recursion vulnerability in JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj() that allows attackers to cause denial of service by supplying deeply nested JSON structures. Attackers can craft JSON payloads exceeding the recursion limit to trigger an unhandled RecursionError that crashes the Python process.\n\n## Remediation\n\nRefer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.\n\n## Package advisory (CVE-2026-66393)\n\nAffected packages:\n\n- `nltk < 3.9.4`\n\nPatched in:\n\n- `nltk 3.9.4`\n\nSource: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-rf74-v2fm-23pw","depth":"twilight","depthScore":41,"depthScoreParts":{"impact":41.3,"likelihood":0.1,"exploitation":0,"ransomware":0},"changes":[]}