#VU40828 Resource management error in MediaWiki - CVE-2015-2942

Vulnerability identifier: #VU40828

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 6.6 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2015-2942

CWE-ID: CWE-399

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
MediaWiki
Web applications / CMS

Vendor: MediaWiki.org

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote non-authenticated attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

MediaWiki before 1.19.24, 1.2x before 1.23.9, and 1.24.x before 1.24.2, when using HHVM, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU and memory consumption) via a large number of nested entity references in an (1) SVG file or (2) XMP metadata in a PDF file, aka a "billion laughs attack," a different vulnerability than CVE-2015-2937.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

MediaWiki: 1.20 - 1.24.1

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External links
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/04/01/1
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/04/07/3
https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/73477
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-announce/2015-March/000175.html
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85848
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201510-05

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.