Description

NVIDIA NeMo Speech for all platforms contains a vulnerability where malicious input created by an attacker could cause a code injection. A successful exploit of this vulnerability might lead to code execution, information disclosure, and data tampering.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-22T15:17:11.253Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-22T15:17:11.253Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability resides in NVIDIA NeMo, a conversational AI toolkit, and is classified as a code injection flaw. It enables an unauthenticated attacker to inject malicious input that is subsequently executed within the context of the application.\nThe impact of this vulnerability is severe, potentially allowing for arbitrary code execution, unauthorized information disclosure, and sensitive data tampering. By exploiting this flaw, an attacker could compromise the integrity and confidentiality of the host environment.\nThe vulnerability affects all platforms utilizing the vulnerable NVIDIA NeMo components. The risk profile is critical, as it requires no prior authentication to trigger the exploit, assuming an attacker can deliver crafted input to the vulnerable interfaces.\nExploitation involves the submission of specially crafted malicious input that the application fails to properly sanitize or validate before processing. Successful execution grants the attacker influence over the application's runtime environment, leading to full system compromise depending on the privileges of the executing process.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability is improper neutralization of special elements used in command or function arguments within NVIDIA NeMo. When the software processes input, it fails to perform adequate input validation or sanitization, allowing an attacker to inject arbitrary data into the execution path.\nThe vulnerability occurs because the application components pass unsanitized input to functions that evaluate or execute the data as code. An attacker can craft a payload containing malicious commands that, when parsed by the vulnerable component, are interpreted and executed by the host's interpreter or underlying operating system.\nThe attack flow begins with the delivery of a malicious payload to an application interface that interacts with the vulnerable NeMo library. This input is processed by the internal functions of the library without sufficient boundary checking or context-sensitive filtering. Once the data reaches a sink that evaluates the input, the malicious instructions are executed with the permissions of the application process.\nThis exploit does not require the attacker to have pre-existing authentication or specific user privileges. If the vulnerable component is exposed to a network interface or accepts external data feeds (such as user-provided model parameters or configuration files), the attacker can interact with the system remotely. The payload behavior may involve spawning a shell, retrieving sensitive environment variables, or modifying configuration files to maintain persistence or escalate privileges within the local environment.\nPost-exploitation activities are limited only by the permissions of the NeMo process. If the application is running with elevated privileges (e.g., as root or administrator), the attacker gains equivalent control over the host system. This allows for data exfiltration, the installation of backdoors, or the lateral movement across the internal network infrastructure. Furthermore, the tampering of data during runtime can compromise the accuracy and reliability of AI models processed by the platform, leading to potential integrity attacks on downstream automated decision-making processes."
}