VulnerabilityPublished 3 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-53368: StarCitizenTools mediawiki-skins-Citizen · Cross-site Scripting

Affects StarCitizenTools mediawiki-skins-CitizenSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.6 High : upgrade to 3.4.0 soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.6High

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

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 27% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 3.4.0

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

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

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: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: Low: Modification of data is possible, but the attacker does not have control over the consequence of a modification, or the amount of modification is limited. The data modification does not have a direct, serious impact on the impacted component.
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 impacted component 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 impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Jul 2025
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

Upgrade starcitizentools/mediawiki-skins-Citizen to 3.4.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubstarcitizentools/mediawiki-skins-Citizen`pkg:github/starcitizentools/mediawiki-skins-Citizen`Other threats	Affected <3.4.0 >=1.9.4	Fixed in 3.4.0

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

AI-suggested

Organizations should immediately verify if they are using the Citizen skin for MediaWiki in the affected versions and upgrade to version 3.4.0 or later where the vulnerability is patched. If immediate upgrade is not feasible, implement the following mitigations: 1) Disable or replace the old search bar feature that triggers the vulnerable code path to prevent injection execution. 2) Apply web application firewall (WAF) rules to detect and block typical XSS payload patterns targeting the search functionality and page descriptions. 3) Restrict page editing privileges strictly to trusted users and enforce strong authentication and authorization controls to reduce the risk of malicious content insertion. 4) Conduct thorough input validation and output encoding on all user-generated content, especially page descriptions, at the application level if possible. 5) Monitor logs for unusual search queries or page edits that could indicate attempted exploitation. 6) Educate users about the risks of XSS and encourage cautious behavior when interacting with wiki content. 7) Regularly audit and update MediaWiki extensions and skins to ensure all components are current and secure.

Description

Citizen is a MediaWiki skin that makes extensions part of the cohesive experience. From versions 1.9.4 to before 3.4.0, page descriptions are inserted into raw HTML without proper sanitization by the Citizen skin when using the old search bar. Any user with page editing privileges can insert cross-site scripting (XSS) payloads into the DOM for other users who are searching for specific pages. This issue has been patched in version 3.4.0.

Impact

For European organizations using MediaWiki with the Citizen skin versions between 1.9.4 and 3.4.0, this vulnerability poses a significant risk. The exploitation can lead to unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information (high confidentiality impact), such as user credentials or session tokens, potentially enabling further compromise of internal systems. The integrity impact is lower but still present, as attackers could manipulate displayed content or perform limited unauthorized actions via the victim's browser context. Availability impact is low but possible if attackers leverage XSS to execute denial-of-service scripts. Given that MediaWiki is often used for internal knowledge bases, documentation, and collaboration, exploitation could disrupt business operations, leak proprietary information, or facilitate lateral movement within networks. The lack of required user interaction means that simply searching for pages can trigger the attack, increasing the risk of widespread impact. European organizations with collaborative platforms or public-facing wikis using this skin are particularly vulnerable. Additionally, regulatory frameworks such as GDPR impose strict requirements on protecting personal data, and exploitation leading to data breaches could result in legal and financial penalties.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (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

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 3 Jul 2025, 19:54 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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