CVE-2023-1886 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.3) CWE-294 vulnerability in thorsten/phpmyfaq. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for thorsten/phpmyfaq — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Authentication Bypass by Capture-replay in thorsten/phpmyfaq
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-1886.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
thorsten/phpmyfaqReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
thorsten/phpmyfaq prior to 3.1.12 is vulnerable to authentication bypass by capture-relay that allows unlimited comments to be sent. This has been fixed in 3.1.12.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | thorsten/phpmyfaq | all versions | 3.1.12composer require thorsten/phpmyfaq:^3.1.12 |
Affected Products
phpmyfaqphpmyfaqResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for thorsten/phpmyfaq, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update thorsten/phpmyfaq to 3.1.12 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-1886 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-1886 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.