CVE-2025-53481 is an Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability (CWE-400) identified in the IPInfo Extension of the Wikimedia Foundation's Mediawiki software. This vulnerability affects multiple versions of the IPInfo Extension, specifically versions from 1.39.x before 1.39.13, 1.42.x before 1.42.7, and 1.43.x before 1.43.2. The IPInfo Extension is designed to provide IP-related information within Mediawiki installations, which are widely used for collaborative content management and documentation. The vulnerability allows an attacker to trigger excessive allocation of system resources, potentially leading to denial of service (DoS) conditions. This uncontrolled resource consumption could be exploited by sending crafted requests or inputs that cause the extension to allocate more memory or CPU cycles than intended, exhausting server resources. Although no known exploits are currently observed in the wild, the vulnerability is publicly disclosed and unpatched in the affected versions, posing a risk to Mediawiki deployments that have not applied updates. The lack of a CVSS score indicates that the severity has not been formally assessed, but the nature of the vulnerability suggests a significant risk to availability. Since Mediawiki is often deployed in public-facing environments, this vulnerability could be leveraged to disrupt services or degrade performance, impacting the availability of critical knowledge bases or documentation portals.

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability can be substantial, especially for those relying on Mediawiki for internal knowledge management, public documentation, or collaborative projects. An attacker exploiting this vulnerability could cause service outages or degraded performance, affecting business continuity and user access to important information. This is particularly critical for government agencies, educational institutions, and large enterprises that use Mediawiki as a central information repository. The uncontrolled resource consumption could lead to denial of service, forcing organizations to allocate additional resources for mitigation or recovery, and potentially causing reputational damage if public-facing wikis become unavailable. Additionally, prolonged outages could disrupt workflows and collaboration, impacting productivity. Since no authentication or user interaction requirements are specified, the attack surface may be broad, increasing the risk of exploitation.

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should prioritize updating the IPInfo Extension to the fixed versions: 1.39.13 or later for the 1.39.x branch, 1.42.7 or later for the 1.42.x branch, and 1.43.2 or later for the 1.43.x branch. If immediate patching is not feasible, organizations should consider temporarily disabling the IPInfo Extension to eliminate the attack vector. Implementing rate limiting and request throttling at the web server or application firewall level can help reduce the risk of resource exhaustion by limiting the number of requests that can trigger the vulnerability. Monitoring resource usage and setting alerts for unusual spikes in CPU or memory consumption related to Mediawiki processes can provide early detection of exploitation attempts. Additionally, organizations should review their Mediawiki configurations to ensure minimal exposure of the IPInfo Extension functionality to untrusted users or anonymous visitors. Network segmentation and access controls can further reduce the attack surface by restricting access to the Mediawiki instance to trusted networks or users.