CVE-2014-3454 in MediaWiki
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Special:CreateCategory in the SemanticForms extension for MediaWiki before 1.19.10, 1.2x before 1.21.4, and 1.22.x before 1.22.1 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of users for requests that create categories via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/09/2019
The CVE-2014-3454 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the SemanticForms extension for MediaWiki, a widely-used open-source wiki platform. This vulnerability specifically targets the Special:CreateCategory functionality, which allows users to create new categories within wiki environments. The flaw exists in MediaWiki versions prior to 1.19.10, 1.21.4, and 1.22.1 respectively, affecting multiple release branches and demonstrating the persistence of CSRF vulnerabilities in web applications. The vulnerability enables remote attackers to manipulate authenticated user sessions and execute unauthorized category creation operations, potentially compromising wiki content integrity and user privileges.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF protection mechanisms within the Special:CreateCategory endpoint. When users navigate to this page, the application should validate that requests originate from legitimate user interactions rather than forged requests submitted by malicious actors. The vulnerability occurs because the extension fails to implement token-based validation or referer checking mechanisms that would normally prevent unauthorized requests from succeeding. Attackers can craft malicious web pages or exploit existing vulnerabilities in other parts of the wiki to submit forged requests that appear to come from authenticated users, leveraging the trust relationship between the user's browser and the wiki application.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unauthorized category creation, as it represents a fundamental breach in the application's authentication and authorization mechanisms. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could potentially create malicious categories that contain harmful content, manipulate existing categories, or even establish backdoor access points within the wiki structure. This type of attack can lead to content pollution, information disclosure, and potential privilege escalation within wiki environments where administrators may have elevated permissions. The vulnerability particularly affects collaborative wiki environments where multiple users contribute content, as it allows attackers to exploit the trust relationship between legitimate users and the wiki application.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2014-3454 require immediate implementation of proper CSRF protection measures within the affected MediaWiki installations. Organizations should upgrade to patched versions of MediaWiki that include CSRF token validation for all privileged operations, including category creation. The fix typically involves implementing unique tokens for each user session that must be validated on server-side processing of requests. This approach aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities, and follows ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for credential access through forged requests. Additional defensive measures include implementing proper referer header validation, enforcing strict session management, and conducting regular security audits of wiki extensions to identify similar vulnerabilities in other components. Network-level protections such as web application firewalls may provide additional defense-in-depth, though the primary solution remains proper application-level CSRF token implementation.