Media Alert: Check Point Discovers Critical Vulnerability for Wikipedia.org and Other ‘Wiki’ Sites

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP), the worldwide leader in securing the Internet, today released its findings of a critical vulnerability in the MediaWiki project Web platform, a popular open-source Web platform used to create and maintain ‘wiki’ Web sites. The MediaWiki platform includes Wikipedia.org, the sixth most visited Web site in the world¹ with over 94 million unique visitors per month.²

Check Point researchers discovered that this critical vulnerability left MediaWiki (version 1.8 onwards) exposed to remote code execution (RCE), where an attacker can gain complete control of the vulnerable web server. Check Point immediately alerted the WikiMedia Foundation about the vulnerability, and after verification, the Foundation issued an update and patch to the MediaWiki software. Check Point also delivered updated protections to its worldwide customers in conjunction with the WikiMedia Foundation’s software update.

Key Findings:

• If the vulnerability had not been uncovered, an attacker would have been able to control the Wikipedia.org Web server, or any other ‘wiki’ site running on MediaWiki, and potentially inject and serve malware-infecting code to users visiting these sites
• The WikiMedia Foundation released a software update after learning of the vulnerability from Check Point and encouraged all MediaWiki customers to apply the patch as soon as possible
• Since 2006, this is only the third RCE vulnerability found in the MediaWiki platform³

Check Point’s Vulnerability Research Group regularly performs assessments of common software to ensure the security of Internet users worldwide. Customers with the Check Point Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) Software Blade automatically received detections for this vulnerability.

“It only takes a single vulnerability on a widely adopted platform for a hacker to infiltrate and wreak widespread damage. The Check Point Vulnerability Research Group focuses on finding these security exposures and deploying the necessary real-time protections to secure the Internet. We’re pleased that the MediaWiki platform is now protected against attacks on this vulnerability, which would have posed great security risk for millions of daily ‘wiki’ site users,” said Dorit Dor, vice president of products at Check Point Software Technologies.

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