dbcve.org
Contact Form With CaptchaWordPress extension · Contact Form With Captcha Project

CVE-2021-42358

HIGH · 8.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-11-29
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 1.6.2 or later.
See remediation →
95/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges

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 · unedited
The Contact Form With Captcha WordPress plugin is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery due to missing nonce validation in the ~/cfwc-form.php file during contact form submission, which made it possible for attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in versions up to, and including 1.6.2.

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 confidence

The Contact Form With Captcha WordPress plugin (versions up to 1.6.2) lacks nonce validation in the ~/cfwc-form.php file during contact form submissions, allowing attackers to forge requests and inject arbitrary web scripts (stored XSS) via CSRF.

MitigationAdd WordPress nonce verification (wp_verify_nonce or check_admin_referer) to all form submission handlers in cfwc-form.php and ensure the nonce field is included in the contact form template.

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
Contact Form With CaptchaWordPress extension
Affected:<= 1.6.2

CVSS 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
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Locate the plugin installation directory
    Check the WordPress plugins folder at wp-content/plugins/ for a directory named 'contact-form-with-captcha' or similar.
    Affected if The plugin directory exists in the WordPress installation.
  2. Identify the installed version
    Check the main plugin file (usually contact-form-with-captcha.php or similar) for the version comment header, or look in the plugin's readme.txt file.
    Affected if The installed version is 1.6.2 or lower.
  3. Locate the vulnerable file
    Navigate to ~/cfwc-form.php within the plugin directory (often at wp-content/plugins/contact-form-with-captcha/cfwc-form.php).
    Affected if The file cfwc-form.php exists in the plugin.
  4. Check for missing nonce validation
    Open cfwc-form.php and search for 'wp_verify_nonce', 'check_admin_referer', or 'wp_nonce_field' around the form submission handler code. Also check the form HTML output section for a nonce field.
    Affected if No nonce verification functions are found in the form submission handler AND no nonce field is present in the form output.

A WordPress site is affected if the Contact Form With Captcha plugin (version 1.6.2 or lower) is installed AND the cfwc-form.php file lacks nonce validation in its form submission handler.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 1.6.2
Interim mitigation

Add WordPress nonce verification (wp_verify_nonce or check_admin_referer) to all form submission handlers in cfwc-form.php and ensure the nonce field is included in the contact form template.

Recommended fix Moderate confidence

1.6.3 or later

  1. Log in to the WordPress admin dashboard
  2. Navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins
  3. Locate 'Contact Form With Captcha' in the plugin list
  4. Check if an update is available for the plugin
  5. If an update is available, click 'Update Now' to install the latest version
  6. Alternatively, manually download the updated plugin from the WordPress Plugin Repository and reinstall

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Contact Form With Captcha Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation1.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
7.0 hours of engineering $1,190
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,904.

Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-42358 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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