Strategic Overview
- Status
- Patched in 1.0.0
- Affected Plugin
- Peter's Math Anti-Spam
- Affected Version
<= 0.1.6- CVSS
- 7.5High
- Weakness type
- CWE-804 · Guessable CAPTCHA
- CVE
CVE-2008-7216
At a glance
CVE-2008-7216 is a high-severity Guessable CAPTCHA vulnerability in the Peter's Math Anti-Spam WordPress plugin, affecting versions <= 0.1.6. It carries a CVSS score of 7.5 (reachable over the network; low attack complexity; high integrity impact). Exploitation requires no authentication. The issue is fixed in version 1.0.0; sites on affected versions should update now. Disclosed January 2008, reported by Jose Palazon.
Vulnerability Overview
The Peter's Math Anti-Spam Spinoff plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to CAPTCHA Bypass in versions up to 1.0.0. This is due to the plugin generating audio CAPTCHA clips by concatenating static audio files without any additional distortion. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to bypass the Captcha Verification by reading certain bytes from the generated clip.
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, and no interaction from a victim user. A successful exploit has high impact on integrity.
CWE-804: Guessable CAPTCHA
The product uses a CAPTCHA challenge, but the challenge can be guessed or automatically recognized by a non-human actor.
Remediation
Update to version 1.0.0, or a newer patched version
How does WordSec protect against this?
Because it turns on account access, WordSec's login security is the relevant layer: role-based two-factor, captcha and brute-force limits raise the cost of getting the account this needs. None of that substitutes for the fix: Peter's Math Anti-Spam 1.0.0 closes this, and updating the plugin is the step that ends it.
- Login Security
- Alerts
External References
Vulnerability data © Defiant, Inc., provided under the Wordfence Intelligence T&C