VulnerabilityPublished 7 Jul 2025Updated 10 Jul 2025

CVE-2025-53497: Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki – RelatedArticles Extension · XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting'

Affects Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki – RelatedArticles ExtensionSource CVE Database V5

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

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 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

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 7 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/mediawiki/extensions/RelatedArticles to 1.44.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
GitHubwikimedia/mediawiki/extensions/RelatedArticles`pkg:github/wikimedia/mediawiki/extensions/RelatedArticles`Other threats	Affected >=1.43.0 <1.44.0	Fixed in 1.44.0

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

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should prioritize upgrading the Mediawiki RelatedArticles Extension to version 1.43.2 or later as soon as it becomes available, as this likely contains the necessary fixes. In the interim, organizations should audit and sanitize all user-generated content within the RelatedArticles Extension to prevent injection of malicious scripts. Implementing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers can help restrict the execution of unauthorized scripts and reduce the impact of potential XSS attacks. Organizations should also enforce the principle of least privilege by limiting user permissions, especially for users who can edit or add content in the RelatedArticles Extension. Regular security training to raise awareness about phishing and social engineering can reduce the risk of user interaction exploitation. Monitoring web logs for unusual activity and employing web application firewalls (WAFs) with rules targeting XSS patterns can provide additional layers of defense. Finally, organizations should maintain an incident response plan that includes procedures for handling XSS incidents.

Description

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Wikimedia Foundation Mediawiki - RelatedArticles Extension allows Stored XSS.This issue affects Mediawiki - RelatedArticles Extension: from 1.43.X before 1.43.2.

Impact

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability can be substantial, particularly for those relying on Mediawiki for internal collaboration, documentation, or public-facing knowledge bases. Exploitation could lead to unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information (confidentiality impact) and unauthorized modification of data or user actions (integrity impact). Since the vulnerability requires user interaction and privileges, attackers might target users with elevated permissions or social engineering tactics to maximize impact. Public sector entities, research institutions, and enterprises using Mediawiki could face reputational damage, data breaches, or operational disruptions if attackers exploit this flaw to inject malicious scripts. Additionally, the cross-site scripting vulnerability could be used as a stepping stone for more complex attacks such as phishing, credential theft, or lateral movement within networks. Given the widespread use of Mediawiki in Europe, the threat could affect a broad range of sectors including government, education, and private industry.

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 14 Jul 2025, 20:56 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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