CVE-2010-1238
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedMoinMoin 1.7.1 allows remote attackers to bypass the textcha protection mechanism by modifying the textcha-question and textcha-answer fields to have empty values.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceMoinMoin 1.7.1 contains a security bypass vulnerability in its textcha (text CAPTCHA) protection mechanism. Attackers can circumvent the CAPTCHA protection by modifying the textcha-question and textcha-answer form fields to have empty values, allowing unauthorized access or actions without passing the intended human verification.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 1.7.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- None
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify MoinMoin versionCheck the installed MoinMoin version by inspecting the version file (e.g., MoinMoin/version.py) or by running 'moin --version' if the command-line tool is availableAffected if The installed version is exactly 1.7.1
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Locate textcha configurationSearch for textcha configuration files in the MoinMoin data directory or wiki configuration. Common locations include 'data/textcha' directory or the wiki's 'wikiconfig.py' fileAffected if textcha configuration files exist and the feature is enabled
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Verify textcha question/answer setupInspect the textcha configuration to confirm that textcha-question and textcha-answer fields are defined. Check for any .txt or configuration files that contain the textcha question and answer pairsAffected if textcha is configured with question and answer pairs that could accept empty values
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Test form field handlingIf you have access to a test environment, submit a form (such as a page edit or comment form) with empty values for both 'textcha-question' and 'textcha-answer' fields and observe whether the request is accepted without validation errorAffected if The server accepts empty textcha fields and processes the request without rejecting them
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Review server-side validation codeExamine the MoinMoin source code, specifically the textcha handler module (typically in MoinMoin/auth/textcha.py or similar), to verify if it validates that both textcha-question and textcha-answer are non-empty before processingAffected if The code lacks server-side validation to reject empty textcha field values
A user is affected if they are running MoinMoin version 1.7.1 with textcha enabled, and the server does not properly validate that textcha-question and textcha-answer fields contain non-empty values before processing requests.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade to a patched version of MoinMoin that properly validates textcha fields server-side, or implement additional server-side validation to reject empty textcha-question and textcha-answer values before processing.
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2010-1238 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2010-1238 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data