CVE-2018-0503 | $wgRateLimits entry for 'user' overrides 'newbie'

Mediawiki 1.31 before 1.31.1, 1.30.1, 1.29.3 and 1.27.5 contains a flaw where contrary to the documentation, $wgRateLimits entry for 'user' overrides that for 'newbie'.

Published: 2018-10-04 Last update: 2026-06-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-0503 is rated Moderate Risk (43.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.52%). EPSS rose +1.13% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-0503

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.38% 1.52% +1.13%
2 2025-12-28 0.51% 0.38% -0.13%
3 2025-12-27 — 0.51% —

Full EPSS history (18 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-0503

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.3 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.8 1.4 [email protected]
4.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:S)
A single authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 8.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-0503

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2018-0503

GHSA-mhfv-9h99-jwg7 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: composer — Mediawiki Improper Privilege Management

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-0503

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-0503 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (mediawiki), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-0503
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-0503
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-0503 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (mediawiki), 19 status rows across 19 suites (bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 15, DNE 2, needed 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-0503

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-0503

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
mediawiki mediawiki >= 1.31.0, < 1.31.1 cpe:2.3:a:mediawiki:mediawiki:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mediawiki mediawiki 1.27.5 cpe:2.3:a:mediawiki:mediawiki:1.27.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mediawiki mediawiki 1.29.3 cpe:2.3:a:mediawiki:mediawiki:1.29.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
mediawiki mediawiki 1.30.1 cpe:2.3:a:mediawiki:mediawiki:1.30.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-0503

cvelogic Threat Intelligence