CVE-2025-53486
What it is
The WikiCategoryTagCloud extension is vulnerable to reflected XSS via the linkstyle attribute, which is improperly concatenated into inline HTML without escaping. An attacker can inject JavaScript event handlers such as onmouseenter using carefully crafted input via the {{#tag:tagcloud}} parser function, resulting in arbitrary JavaScript execution when a victim hovers over a link in the category cloud. The vulnerability exists because the linkstyle parameter is only passed through Sanitizer::checkCss() (which does not escape HTML) and is then directly inserted into a style attribute using string concatenation instead of Html::element or Html::openElement. This issue affects Mediawiki - WikiCategoryTagCloud extension: from 1.39.X before 1.39.13, from 1.42.X before 1.42.7, from 1.43.X before 1.43.2.
At a glance
- Exploitability
- Can be exploited over the network with a low-privilege account, but needs a user to act. Limited direct impact.
- Exploit odds
- 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).
- Fix
- No patch or advisory is linked yet. Look at mitigations or restrict exposure.
Timeline
- PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
- Last updatedMost recent change to the record
Why it ranks here
- Exploited in the wild: no, CISA does not list it.
- Exploit odds: 0.3% in the next 30 days (EPSS).
- Severity: 5.4 MEDIUM (CVSS).
- Fix: none linked yet, which raises it.
Details
- Published
- Last modified
- Exploit probability
- 0.3% · EPSS, next 30 days
- Weakness
- CWE-79 · Cross-site scripting
- Record status
- Deferred
Attack profile CVSS 3.1 · 5.4
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Is it in your code?
Hand this to your coding agent. It searches your project for the affected products and checks versions. Nothing leaves your machine.
Read https://cve-list.com/agent/cve/CVE-2025-53486.md and follow it. Check whether this project is affected by CVE-2025-53486. Read only. Don't change anything and don't upload my code. Tell me yes, no or not sure, with the file as proof.
