CVE-2025-53368 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.6) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in starcitizentools/citizen-skin. A fix is available for starcitizentools/citizen-skin — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Citizen is vulnerable to stored XSS attack in the legacy search bar
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2025-53368.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
starcitizentools/citizen-skinReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
Page descriptions are inserted into raw HTML without proper sanitization by the Citizen skin when using the old search bar.
Details
The descriptions, which are unsanitized, are inserted as raw HTML: https://github.com/StarCitizenTools/mediawiki-skins-Citizen/blob/d4dfc3697a82948b3b9c4d44e9a273c79bc86b87/resources/skins.citizen.search/templates/TypeaheadListItem.mustache#L18
PoC
All of the reproduction methods require the command palette to be disabled via $wgCitizenEnableCommandPalette = false;.
Additionally, the action API must be used as the Search Gateway via $wgCitizenSearchGateway = 'mwActionApi';.
TextExtracts as the description source
- Enable the TextExtracts extension
- Add
$wgCitizenSearchDescriptionSource = 'textextracts';to your LocalSettings.php - Create a page called
CitizenXSSTextExtractsand insert<img src="" onerror="alert('citizen search xss')">into it - Open the search modal and search for
CitizenXSSTextExtracts
Description2 as the description source
- Enable the Description2 extension
- Add
$wgEnableMetaDescriptionFunctions = true;to your LocalSettings.php to enable the{{#description2:}}parser function - Add
$wgCitizenSearchDescriptionSource = 'pagedescription';to your LocalSettings.php - Create a page called
CitizenXSSDescription2and insert{{#description2:<img src="" onerror="alert('citizen search xss 2')">}}into it - Open the search modal and search for
CitizenXSSDescription2
Wikibase as the description source
Note that this method is currently untested due to issues I experienced when setting up Wikibase.
- Enable Wikibase client + repo in your wiki
- Add
$wgCitizenSearchDescriptionSource = 'wikidata';to your LocalSettings.php - Have an item with a description like
<img src="" onerror="alert('citizen search xss 3')"> - Open the search modal and search for the page linked to the item
ShortDescription as the description source
- Enable the ShortDescription extension
- Add
$wgCitizenSearchDescriptionSource = 'wikidata';to your LocalSettings.php - Create a page called
CitizenXSSDescription4and insert{{SHORTDESC:<img src="" onerror="alert('citizen search xss 4')">}}into it - Open the search modal and search for
CitizenXSSDescription4
Impact
On all wikis that use the aforementioned settings (command palette disabled or using an old release where the old search bar is still used; using the action API as the search gateway), anybody who can edit pages is able to insert XSS payloads into the DOM for other users who are searching for specific pages.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | starcitizentools/citizen-skin | ≥ 1.9.4&&< 3.4.0 | 3.4.0composer require starcitizentools/citizen-skin:^3.4.0 |
Affected Products
citizenstarcitizen.toolsDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for starcitizentools/citizen-skin, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update starcitizentools/citizen-skin to 3.4.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-53368 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Escape or sanitise the affected output on the server side rather than relying on client-side filtering, and add a Content-Security-Policy that blocks inline script execution so injected markup cannot run even if it reaches the page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-53368 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.