CVE-2026-116872

Description

Semantic MediaWiki from 3.0.0 before 7.3.1 contains an algorithmic complexity vulnerability in TermParser::normalize_compact_form() that allows unauthenticated attackers to cause quadratic CPU consumption. Attackers can submit long search terms with many distinct in:(...) or has:(...) expressions to Special:Search to exhaust PHP search workers when the extended search engine is enabled.

References

• https://github.com/SemanticMediaWiki/SemanticMediaWiki/commit/c2bf1699dec4016e21ce52613152bda799ce87d4
• https://github.com/SemanticMediaWiki/SemanticMediaWiki/security/advisories/GHSA-j2r2-7qpg-p675
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/semantic-mediawiki-3.0.0-before-7.3.1-denial-of-service-via-special-search-compact-filters