The remote Debian 10 / 11 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the dsa-4979 advisory.

    Multiple security issues were found in MediaWiki, a website engine for collaborative work, which could     result in cross-site scripting, denial of service and a bypass of restrictions in the Replace Text     extension. For the oldstable distribution (buster), these problems have been fixed in version     1:1.31.16-1~deb10u1. For the stable distribution (bullseye), these problems have been fixed in version     1:1.35.4-1~deb11u1. We recommend that you upgrade your mediawiki packages. For the detailed security     status of mediawiki please refer to its security tracker page at: https://security-     tracker.debian.org/tracker/mediawiki

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Debian security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

MediaWiki reports :

(T285515, CVE-2021-41798) SECURITY: XSS vulnerability in Special:Search.

(T290379, CVE-2021-41799) SECURITY: ApiQueryBacklinks can cause a full table scan.

(T284419, CVE-2021-41800) SECURITY: fix PoolCounter protection of Special:Contributions.

(T279090, CVE-2021-41801) SECURITY: ReplaceText continues performing actions if the user no longer has the correct permission (such as by being blocked).

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - MediaWiki before 1.36.2 allows a denial of service (resource consumption because of lengthy query     processing time). Visiting Special:Contributions can sometimes result in a long running SQL query because     PoolCounter protection is mishandled. (CVE-2021-41800)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-202305-24 (MediaWiki: Multiple Vulnerabilities)

  - MediaWiki before 1.36.2 allows XSS. Month related MediaWiki messages are not escaped before being used on     the Special:Search results page. (CVE-2021-41798)

  - MediaWiki before 1.36.2 allows a denial of service (resource consumption because of lengthy query     processing time). ApiQueryBacklinks (action=query&list=backlinks) can cause a full table scan.
    (CVE-2021-41799)

  - MediaWiki before 1.36.2 allows a denial of service (resource consumption because of lengthy query     processing time). Visiting Special:Contributions can sometimes result in a long running SQL query because     PoolCounter protection is mishandled. (CVE-2021-41800)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.5, 1.36.x before 1.36.3, and 1.37.x before 1.37.1. The     REST API publicly caches results from private wikis. (CVE-2021-44854)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.5, 1.36.x before 1.36.3, and 1.37.x before 1.37.1. There     is Blind Stored XSS via a URL to the Upload Image feature. (CVE-2021-44855)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.5, 1.36.x before 1.36.3, and 1.37.x before 1.37.1. A     title blocked by AbuseFilter can be created via Special:ChangeContentModel due to the mishandling of the     EditFilterMergedContent hook return value. (CVE-2021-44856)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.5, 1.36.x before 1.36.3, and 1.37.x before 1.37.1. It is     possible to use action=mcrundo followed by action=mcrrestore to replace the content of any arbitrary page     (that the user doesn't have edit rights for). This applies to any public wiki, or a private wiki that has     at least one page set in $wgWhitelistRead. (CVE-2021-44857)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.5, 1.36.x before 1.36.3, and 1.37.x before 1.37.1. It is     possible to use action=edit&undo= followed by action=mcrundo and action=mcrrestore to view private pages     on a private wiki that has at least one page set in $wgWhitelistRead. (CVE-2021-44858)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.5, 1.36.x before 1.36.3, and 1.37.x before 1.37.1. By     using an action=rollback query, attackers can view private wiki contents. (CVE-2021-45038)

  - An XSS issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.6, 1.36.x before 1.36.4, and 1.37.x before 1.37.2.
    The widthheight, widthheightpage, and nbytes properties of messages are not escaped when used in galleries     or Special:RevisionDelete. (CVE-2022-28202)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki through 1.37.1. The CentralAuth extension mishandles a ttl issue for     groups expiring in the future. (CVE-2022-28205)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki through 1.37.1. ImportPlanValidator.php in the FileImporter extension     mishandles the check for edit rights. (CVE-2022-28206)

  - An issue was discovered in Mediawiki through 1.37.1. The check for the override-antispoof permission in     the AntiSpoof extension is incorrect. (CVE-2022-28209)

  - Guzzle, an extensible PHP HTTP client. `Authorization` headers on requests are sensitive information. In     affected versions when using our Curl handler, it is possible to use the `CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH` option to     specify an `Authorization` header. On making a request which responds with a redirect to a URI with a     different origin (change in host, scheme or port), if we choose to follow it, we should remove the     `CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH` option before continuing, stopping curl from appending the `Authorization` header to     the new request. Affected Guzzle 7 users should upgrade to Guzzle 7.4.5 as soon as possible. Affected     users using any earlier series of Guzzle should upgrade to Guzzle 6.5.8 or 7.4.5. Note that a partial fix     was implemented in Guzzle 7.4.2, where a change in host would trigger removal of the curl-added     Authorization header, however this earlier fix did not cover change in scheme or change in port. If you do     not require or expect redirects to be followed, one should simply disable redirects all together.
    Alternatively, one can specify to use the Guzzle steam handler backend, rather than curl. (CVE-2022-31090)

  - Guzzle, an extensible PHP HTTP client. `Authorization` and `Cookie` headers on requests are sensitive     information. In affected versions on making a request which responds with a redirect to a URI with a     different port, if we choose to follow it, we should remove the `Authorization` and `Cookie` headers from     the request, before containing. Previously, we would only consider a change in host or scheme. Affected     Guzzle 7 users should upgrade to Guzzle 7.4.5 as soon as possible. Affected users using any earlier series     of Guzzle should upgrade to Guzzle 6.5.8 or 7.4.5. Note that a partial fix was implemented in Guzzle     7.4.2, where a change in host would trigger removal of the curl-added Authorization header, however this     earlier fix did not cover change in scheme or change in port. An alternative approach would be to use your     own redirect middleware, rather than ours, if you are unable to upgrade. If you do not require or expect     redirects to be followed, one should simply disable redirects all together. (CVE-2022-31091)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.7, 1.36.x and 1.37.x before 1.37.3, and 1.38.x before     1.38.1. XSS can occur in configurations that allow a JavaScript payload in a username. After account     creation, when it sets the page title to Welcome followed by the username, the username is not escaped:
    SpecialCreateAccount::successfulAction() calls ::showSuccessPage() with a message as second parameter, and     OutputPage::setPageTitle() uses text(). (CVE-2022-34911)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.37.3 and 1.38.x before 1.38.1. The contributions-title, used     on Special:Contributions, is used as page title without escaping. Hence, in a non-default configuration     where a username contains HTML entities, it won't be escaped. (CVE-2022-34912)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.8, 1.36.x and 1.37.x before 1.37.5, and 1.38.x before     1.38.3. HTMLUserTextField exposes the existence of hidden users. (CVE-2022-41765)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.8, 1.36.x and 1.37.x before 1.37.5, and 1.38.x before     1.38.3. When changes made by an IP address are reassigned to a user (using reassignEdits.php), the changes     will still be attributed to the IP address on Special:Contributions when doing a range lookup.
    (CVE-2022-41767)

  - An issue was discovered in MediaWiki before 1.35.9, 1.36.x through 1.38.x before 1.38.5, and 1.39.x before     1.39.1. When installing with a pre-existing data directory that has weak permissions, the SQLite files are     created with file mode 0644, i.e., world readable to local users. These files include credentials data.
    (CVE-2022-47927)

  - Mediawiki reports: (T316304, CVE-2022-41767) SECURITY: reassignEdits doesn't update results             in     an IP range check on Special:Contributions.. (T309894, CVE-2022-41765) SECURITY: HTMLUserTextField exposes     existence             of hidden users.  (T307278, CVE-2022-41766) SECURITY: On action=rollback the message     alreadyrolled can leak revision deleted user name. (CVE-2022-41766)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
153862	Debian DSA-4979-1 : mediawiki - security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	10/4/2021	1/24/2025	high
153872	FreeBSD : mediawiki -- multiple vulnerabilities (f84ab297-2285-11ec-9e79-08002789875b)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	10/5/2021	11/29/2023	high
244291	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2021-41800	Nessus	Misc.	8/6/2025	8/6/2025	medium
176192	GLSA-202305-24 : MediaWiki: Multiple Vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	5/21/2023	5/21/2023	critical

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high

high

medium

critical