CVE-2025-53369
Citizen Short Description stored XSS vulnerability through wikitext
Impact
### Summary Short descriptions are not properly sanitized by the ShortDescription before being inserted as HTML using `mw.util.addSubtitle`, allowing any user to insert arbitrary HTML into the DOM by editing a page. ### Details The description provided by the user via the `{{SHORTDESC:}}` parser function is insufficiently sanitized by the `sanitize()` function, as html entities are decoded: https://github.com/StarCitizenTools/mediawiki-extensions-ShortDescription/blob/7244b1e8b5cb6dbd7e546c5be7fed8a56e33d065/includes/Hooks/ParserHooks.php#L147-L159 Via JS, the short description is then passed to `mw.util.addSubtitle`, which inserts it as raw HTML: https://github.com/StarCitizenTools/mediawiki-extensions-ShortDescription/blob/7244b1e8b5cb6dbd7e546c5be7fed8a56e33d065/modules/ext.shortDescription.js#L8 https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/blob/96372101b3c579d9992e8a31a3ccd90a937cac47/resources/src/mediawiki.util/util.js#L552-L563 ### PoC 1. Enable ShortDescription 2. Make sure `$wgShortDescriptionEnableTagline` is set to `true` (this is the default) 3. Create a page and insert the following wikitext: `{{SHORTDESC:<img src="" onerror="alert('shortdescription xss')">}}` 4. Visit the page   ### Impact Arbitrary HTML can be inserted into the DOM by any user, allowing for JavaScript to be executed.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| composer | starcitizentools/short-description | >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.1 | 4.0.1 |
Weakness classification
References
- NVD record
- CVE.org record
- GitHub advisory
- https://github.com/StarCitizenTools/mediawiki-extensions-ShortDescription/commit/bc4fdbaeb1dff127fb6d08c0d385b64aa128c8f8
- https://github.com/StarCitizenTools/mediawiki-extensions-ShortDescription/security/advisories/GHSA-p85q-mww9-gwqf
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-p85q-mww9-gwqf
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-53369