u/YaronKoren

If you're running the External Data extension and haven't either updated or disabled it, it's probably too late, but: there was a major security bug discovered in it about a week ago, and someone went around and hacked into, or at least tried hacking into, seemingly all of the public wikis that ran that extension. You should update to the latest version, 3.7, as soon as possible - it gets rid of this vulnerability. And you should also look for any files that have been created or modified on the server in the last seven days - I'd they're PHP files, there's a good chance they were added there in order to further exploit your server. Finally, my apologies for all the chaos that has been caused; I hope the worst is behind us.

I first released Working with MediaWiki in 2012, and every few years since then I have released a new, updated version (one of the perks of self-publishing). The 2026 version just came out, with lots of updates, especially to the content about extensions, and a whole new chapter on wikis and AI. You can read the whole book online for free, or order a hard copy from Amazon, both from here:

https://workingwithmediawiki.com/

I hope you like it!