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MEDIUM severity

CVE-2026-77616 — semantic-media-wiki

MEDIUM

CVE-2026-77616 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki. A fix is available for mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Semantic MediaWiki affected by reflected XSS in `Special:Ask` via a forged cursor pagination token

Also known asGHSA-cx86-7xwp-w9wf
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Nov 4, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-77616.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs26th percentile — riskier than 26% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.28%0.55%0.83%0.3%0.3%0.3%Oct 26Nov 26Nov 26

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

1 pkg affected
🐘mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki

Real-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

Reflected XSS via a forged cursor pagination token

Failure mode

Special:Ask accepts a cursor query parameter for keyset pagination (added in 7.0.0). The token is decoded by CursorEncoder, which is an unsigned base64url-encoded JSON blob, so its contents are fully attacker-controlled. When the cursor's sort anchor does not match the request's sort= / order=, QueryCreator::applyCursorIfRequested() builds an error message by interpolating the attacker-controlled sort_prop / sort_order values into a raw string via Query::addErrors().

Unlike SMW's message-key errors, this raw string bypasses the message layer's sanitisation (ProcessingErrorMsgHandler::normalizeAndDecodeMessages() passes a non-key, non-encoded string through unchanged). ErrorWidget::queryError() then assembles the errors and passes them to Html::errorBox(), whose first argument is emitted as raw HTML. The result is a reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability: a crafted cursor token containing markup in sort_prop (or sort_order) executes script in the victim's browser on the wiki origin.

No authentication or special permission is required. The payload is delivered via a crafted link, e.g. Special:Ask?q=...&p[cursor]=<forged token> where the token decodes to {"v":1,"sort_prop":"<script>...</script>"}. Confirmed executing in a browser; the responses carry no Content-Security-Policy, so inline script is not blocked.

Remediation

  • Output-encode the attacker-controlled sort_prop / sort_order values before they are interpolated into the error text in QueryCreator, so no raw user input enters the error stream.
  • Defense in depth: the format=debug output path that reflected the same error text was hardened separately in GHSA-q5fm-9mx6-44f4.

Maintenance note

Query error strings are rendered as raw HTML by ErrorWidget::queryError() via Html::errorBox(). Any error added through Query::addErrors() that embeds user-controlled text must be output-encoded (or use a message key); pagination and validation error text is attacker-influenced and must not be treated as trusted.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐘Packagistmediawiki/semantic-media-wiki≥ 7.0.0&&< 7.2.07.2.0composer require mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki:^7.2.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki to 7.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-77616 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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

## Reflected XSS via a forged cursor pagination token #### Failure mode `Special:Ask` accepts a `cursor` query parameter for keyset pagination (added in 7.0.0). The token is decoded by `CursorEncoder`, which is an **unsigned** base64url-encoded JSON blob, so its contents are fully attacker-controlled. When the cursor's sort anchor does not match the request's `sort=` / `order=`, `QueryCreator::applyCursorIfRequested()` builds an error message by interpolating the attacker-controlled `sort_prop` / `sort_order` values into a raw string via `Query::addErrors()`. Unlike SMW's message-key errors
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2026-77616: semantic-media-wiki XSS — Fixed in 7.2.0