Math Comment Spam Protection <= 2.1 - Cross-Site Request Forgery
Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 2.2
- Affected Plugin
- Math Comment Spam Protection
- Affected Version
<= 2.1- CVSS
- 8.8High
- Weakness type
- CWE-352 · Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
- CVE
CVE-2008-0205
At a glance
CVE-2008-0205 is a high-severity Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Math Comment Spam Protection WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 2.1. It carries a CVSS score of 8.8 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high confidentiality, integrity, availability impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 2.2; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed November 2007, reported by Eugene Dokukin.
Vulnerability Overview
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in math-comment-spam-protection.php in the Math Comment Spam Protection 2.1 and earlier plugin for WordPress allow remote attackers to perform actions as administrators via the (1) mcsp_opt_msg_no_answer or (2) mcsp_opt_msg_wrong_answer parameter to wp-admin/options-general.php.
Technical Analysis
The vector marks this flaw as remotely reachable over the network, with low attack complexity — no special timing or configuration is needed, and no privileges on the target site. A successful exploit has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability — full site compromise territory.
CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Reaching this weakness in Math Comment Spam Protection <= 2.1 takes a caller who can reach the endpoint. Cross-site request forgery abuses the fact that browsers attach a victim's cookies to any request, so a state-changing action that only checks who you are, not whether you meant to act, can be triggered from another site.
An attacker who gets a logged-in user to load a crafted page can perform that action as them, with the impact scaling to whatever the victim's role is allowed to do. For Math Comment Spam Protection the fix is 2.2: builds <= 2.1 are affected, anything from 2.2 onward is not.
Remediation
Update to version 2.2, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
The attempt arrives as an ordinary request to Math Comment Spam Protection: WordSec's web application firewall inspects request payloads before WordPress loads them. None of that substitutes for the fix: Math Comment Spam Protection 2.2 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Firewall
- Alerts
External References
Related records
Other vulnerabilities in Math Comment Spam Protection
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