High

Citizen Short Description stored XSS vulnerability through wikitext

  • Disclosed: 03.07.2025
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

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

image image

Impact

Arbitrary HTML can be inserted into the DOM by any user, allowing for JavaScript to be executed.

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Composer package starcitizentools/short-description >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.1 4.0.1

References

CVSS score 8.6/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-79
Platform
Composer
Package
starcitizentools/short-description
Disclosed
03.07.2025
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-p85q-mww9-gwqf - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: starcitizentools/short-description

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Composer package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

This is the only known vulnerability of this package.

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