MediawikiCMS

CVE-2021-36126

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-07-02
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 1.36 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Public exploit Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was discovered in the AbuseFilter extension in MediaWiki through 1.36. If the MediaWiki:Abusefilter-blocker message is invalid within the content language, the filter user falls back to the English version, but that English version could also be invalid on a wiki. This would result in a fatal error, and potentially fail to block or restrict a potentially nefarious user.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
MediawikiCMS
Affected:<= 1.36

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 1.36
Recommended fix High confidence

MediaWiki 1.37.0 or later

  1. 1. Backup your MediaWiki database and files before proceeding
  2. 2. Download MediaWiki 1.37.0 or later from the official MediaWiki releases (https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/)
  3. 3. Extract the new version to your web server
  4. 4. Copy your LocalSettings.php from your current installation to the new installation
  5. 5. Run the maintenance/update.php script to update the database schema
  6. 6. Verify the AbuseFilter extension is properly installed and enabled
  7. 7. Test that the AbuseFilter:Abusefilter-blocker message is valid in your wiki's content language and in English
  8. 8. Verify that abusive users are properly blocked by the filter
Caveat Minor: Review extension compatibility as MediaWiki 1.37 may have API or extension compatibility changes from 1.36

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $2,300. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-36126 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-36126 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data