Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-61646

Path Traversal in Mediawiki ≤ 1.39.14

Published
03 February 2026
Modified
25 March 2026
CVSS Score v4 1.2
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0023 14th percentile
Risk Priority 15 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-61646 is a low-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability in Mediawiki Mediawiki. Its CVSS base score is 1.2 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 14th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Vulnerability in Wikimedia Foundation MediaWiki. This vulnerability is associated with program files includes/RecentChanges/EnhancedChangesList.Php. This issue affects MediaWiki: from * before 1.39.14, 1.43.4, 1.44.1.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
Why these techniques?

CWE-22 (Path Traversal) in a web application (MediaWiki) directly enables exploitation of a public-facing application (T1190) to read or write files outside intended directories.

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-61641Same product: Mediawiki Mediawiki
CVE-2025-61634Same product: Mediawiki Mediawiki
CVE-2026-0669Same product: Mediawiki Mediawiki
CVE-2025-61658Same vendor: Mediawiki
CVE-2025-7712Shared CWE-22
CVE-2026-31802Shared CWE-22
CVE-2026-2683Shared CWE-22
CVE-2025-54453Shared CWE-22
CVE-2025-7626Shared CWE-22
CVE-2026-23633Shared CWE-22

Affected Assets

mediawiki
mediawiki
1.44.0 · ≤ 1.39.14 · 1.43.0 — 1.43.4

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V5.3.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly requires validation of all inputs (including path parameters in EnhancedChangesList.php) to reject traversal sequences before file access occurs.

prevent

Enforces that only explicitly authorized file paths within the MediaWiki installation may be read or listed, blocking unauthorized traversal attempts.

prevent

Limits the web-server process to the minimal set of directories needed for RecentChanges, reducing the impact surface of any successful path traversal.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Patching/maintenance can remediate known path-traversal flaws in deployed software (partial prevention of exploitability) but does nothing to stop the coding defect from being introduced in the first place.

PR.AA-05 none match
prevents

PR.AA-05 defines and reviews access policies but does not address code-level pathname neutralization, so neither direction prevents CWE-22.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

detects

Security testing in development catches path traversal via static/dynamic analysis.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates input validation and path sanitization that directly prevent path traversal.

prevents

Application security requirements include rules for safe file handling and canonicalization.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require least-privilege file access and directory isolation.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe path construction and mandate safe APIs.

mitigates

Information access restriction limits which files an application may read or write.

References