VulnerabilityPublished 5 May 2024Updated 4 Nov 2025

CVE-2024-34506: MediaWiki · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High · fixed in 1.41.1 : patch MediaWiki soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 15:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

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

EPSS: 0.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 59% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Affects: MediaWiki before 1.39.7
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.41.1, 1.40.3, 1.39.7

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

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

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, 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: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 5 May 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: 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 26 Oct 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.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, 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

AI-suggested

European organizations should prioritize upgrading MediaWiki installations to versions 1.39.7, 1.40.3, or 1.41.1 and later, where this vulnerability is addressed. Until upgrades are applied, administrators should restrict move page permissions to trusted users only and monitor for unusual move operations involving pages with large numbers of subpages. Implementing rate limiting or timeout controls on the Special:MovePage functionality can help mitigate excessive resource consumption. Organizations should audit their wiki content to identify pages with large subpage counts and avoid moving these pages unless necessary. Additionally, consider segmenting large wiki structures to reduce the number of subpages under a single page. Monitoring server performance and logs for signs of denial of service attempts related to page moves is recommended. If possible, disable or restrict the Special:MovePage feature temporarily in high-risk environments until patches are applied. Finally, maintain awareness of vendor advisories and apply patches promptly when released.

Description

An issue was discovered in includes/specials/SpecialMovePage.php in MediaWiki before 1.39.7, 1.40.x before 1.40.3, and 1.41.x before 1.41.1. If a user with the necessary rights to move the page opens Special:MovePage for a page with tens of thousands of subpages, then the page will exceed the maximum request time, leading to a denial of service.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a risk primarily to the availability of MediaWiki-based services. MediaWiki is widely used in public sector, educational institutions, and enterprises across Europe for collaborative documentation and knowledge management. A denial of service caused by this vulnerability could disrupt internal and external wiki services, impacting operational continuity and information access. Organizations with large-scale MediaWiki deployments containing extensive page hierarchies are particularly vulnerable, as the move operation on pages with tens of thousands of subpages triggers the issue. This could lead to administrative delays and potential downtime, affecting workflows dependent on wiki content management. While confidentiality and integrity are not impacted, the availability disruption could have cascading effects on business processes, especially in government agencies and research institutions that rely heavily on MediaWiki. The requirement for authenticated users with move rights limits the attack surface but insider threats or compromised accounts could exploit this vulnerability. The lack of known exploits reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the potential for future exploitation.

CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place.
Architecture and Design
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or; uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Sustained Client Engagement (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 4 Nov 2025, 17:56 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-400

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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