NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) before version 3.9.3 contains an eval injection vulnerability in the nltk.collocations module that allows an attacker who controls command-line arguments to execute arbitrary Python code. When collocations.py is invoked directly, the __main__ block passes command-line arguments directly to eval() as suffixes of BigramAssocMeasures without allowlist validation or sanitization, enabling an attacker to supply a Python expression that escapes the intended attribute lookup and executes arbitrary code including OS commands via the os module.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) before version 3.9.3 contains an eval injection vulnerability in the
    nltk.collocations module that allows an attacker who controls command-line arguments to execute arbitrary
    Python code. When collocations.py is invoked directly, the __main__ block passes command-line arguments
    directly to eval() as suffixes of BigramAssocMeasures without allowlist validation or sanitization,
    enabling an attacker to supply a Python expression that escapes the intended attribute lookup and executes
    arbitrary code including OS commands via the os module. (CVE-2025-71408)

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) before version 3.9.3 contains an eval injection vulnerability in the     nltk.collocations module that allows an attacker who controls command-line arguments to execute arbitrary     Python code. When collocations.py is invoked directly, the __main__ block passes command-line arguments     directly to eval() as suffixes of BigramAssocMeasures without allowlist validation or sanitization,     enabling an attacker to supply a Python expression that escapes the intended attribute lookup and executes     arbitrary code including OS commands via the os module. (CVE-2025-71408)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Type	Severity
464025	Echo: nltk: security update to 3.9.3	Tenable Cloud Security	Echo Local Security Checks	Local	high
464025	Echo: nltk: security update to 3.9.3	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	Echo Local Security Checks	Local	high
445911	SCA: security update for nltk (GHSA-848c-c2cx-j7qx)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	Local	high
445911	SCA: security update for nltk (GHSA-848c-c2cx-j7qx)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	Local	high
330035	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-71408	Nessus	Misc.	Local	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2025-71408

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high

high