CVE-2023-5239 | Security & Malware scan by CleanTalk < 2.121 - IP Spoofing

Exp

The Security & Malware scan by CleanTalk WordPress plugin before 2.121 retrieves client IP addresses from potentially untrusted headers, allowing an attacker to manipulate its value. This may be used to bypass bruteforce protection.

Published: 2023-11-27 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-5239 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2023-5239

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-5239

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-11-21 0.20% 0.03% -0.17%
2 2025-11-18 0.04% 0.20% +0.16%
3 2025-04-15 0.04%

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-5239

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.9 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-5239

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-5239

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
cleantalk security_\&_malware_scan <= 2.121 cpe:2.3:a:cleantalk:security_\&_malware_scan:*:*:*:*:*:wordpress:*:*

References for CVE-2023-5239

cvelogic Threat Intelligence