VulnerabilityPublished 8 Jul 2025Updated 10 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-53479: Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki – CheckUser extension · XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting'

Affects Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki – CheckUser extensionSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.4 Medium : upgrade to 1.44.0 or 1.43.0 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.4Medium

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

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 9% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.44.0, 1.43.0

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

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

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: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
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: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 8 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 Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki – CheckUser extension to 1.44.0 or 1.43.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki - CheckUser extension	Affected >=1.42.0 <1.43.0 >=1.43.0 <1.44.0	Fixed in 1.43.0 1.44.0

AI-suggested

Immediate upgrade to Mediawiki CheckUser extension versions 1.42.7 or later, or 1.43.2 or later, where the vulnerability is patched.
Restrict access to the Special:CheckUser interface strictly to trusted and trained personnel, minimizing the number of users who can access this functionality.
Implement Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to reduce the impact of potential XSS by restricting the execution of inline scripts and untrusted sources.
Educate privileged users about phishing and social engineering risks, emphasizing caution when clicking on links or opening messages that could exploit the uselang parameter.
Monitor web server logs and application logs for unusual requests containing the 'uselang=x-xss' parameter or suspicious query strings targeting the CheckUser interface.
Consider deploying web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block attempts to exploit this reflected XSS vulnerability.
Regularly audit and review user privileges to ensure only necessary users have access to sensitive extensions like CheckUser. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on access control, user training, and proactive detection tailored to the specific vulnerability vector.

Description

The CheckUser extension’s Special:CheckUser interface is vulnerable to reflected XSS via the rev-deleted-user message. This message is rendered without proper escaping, making it possible to inject JavaScript through the uselang=x-xss language override mechanism. This issue affects Mediawiki - CheckUser extension: from 1.42.X before 1.42.7, from 1.43.X before 1.43.2.

Impact

For European organizations, especially those operating Wikimedia-based platforms or similar Mediawiki installations with the CheckUser extension enabled, this vulnerability could lead to unauthorized disclosure of sensitive user information and compromise of administrative functions. Given that Wikimedia projects are widely used and mirrored across Europe, including national and educational wikis, the risk extends to privacy violations under GDPR if user data is exposed. Attackers exploiting this XSS could hijack sessions of trusted users, potentially leading to unauthorized access to investigative tools or user metadata, undermining trust and operational security. Furthermore, manipulation of the CheckUser interface could facilitate further attacks or misinformation campaigns. The medium severity score indicates a moderate but tangible risk, particularly in environments where the CheckUser extension is actively used by multiple administrators or volunteers. The requirement for user interaction and privileges somewhat limits the attack surface but does not eliminate risk, especially in social engineering scenarios targeting privileged users.

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 15 Jul 2025, 21:40 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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