VulnerabilityPublished 2 Sep 2026Updated 17 Sep 2026

CVE-2026-81722: NLTK · Quadratic-time DoS in PorterStemmer via long runs of 'y'

Affects gptlineSource GCVE Database

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium : upgrade to 1.0.8_23 when convenient.

Data as of 1 Nov 2026, 22:58 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.9Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 44% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.0.8_23

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: Low
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 2 Sep 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 1 Nov 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade gptline to 1.0.8_23.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewgptline`pkg:brew/gptline`Other threats	Affected >=1.0.8 <1.0.8_23	Fixed in 1.0.8_23

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

A patch is available for gptline that addresses this quadratic-time DoS by optimizing the consonant/vowel classification to linear time. Users should apply the official fix to versions >=1.0.8 and <1.0.8_23. No additional mitigation is required beyond applying the patch.

Description

The NLTK PorterStemmer's stem() function has a quadratic-time denial-of-service vulnerability triggered by tokens containing long runs of the letter 'y'. This causes excessive CPU consumption when processing such tokens, impacting availability but not confidentiality or integrity. The issue arises from an iterative function that repeatedly walks backward over runs of 'y's, resulting in O(n^2) complexity. A fix is available to optimize this to linear time.

Impact

An attacker can cause a denial-of-service by submitting a single token of approximately 20-50 KB consisting of repeated 'y' characters, causing multi-second to minutes of CPU consumption per request. This impacts single-process availability but does not affect confidentiality or integrity.

Summary

The vulnerability in nltk.stem.PorterStemmer.stem() (CVE-2026-81722) is due to the _is_consonant(word, i) function walking backward over a run of 'y's on every call, causing quadratic time complexity when processing tokens with long runs of 'y'. This leads to denial-of-service by high CPU usage when stemming such tokens, especially those appended with suffixes like 'ness' that trigger the _measure() function. The original recursion error fix introduced this performance regression. The vulnerability affects gptline versions >=1.0.8 and <1.0.8_23. A patch is available to memoize consonant/vowel classification in a single pass, reducing complexity to linear time.

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Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 18 Sep 2026, 01:51 UTC

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