htaccess mod_rewrite for specific starting substrings only

OK, when reading this question please ignore the fact that the developers should be fixing their out of date plugins... this is another battle being fought elsewhere.

We are trying to block querystrings in the format of mydomainname.com/?q=anytexthere

I have successfully used this code in the htaccess file:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \bq=\b [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [F]

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But this unfortunately stops timthumb.php requests from working, I assume because the timthumb string includes ;q=21 (for example).

So, given that we only want to block requests that start with /?q=anytexthere how would we modify the RewriteCond ?

Help appreciated.
jammy-d0dgerAsked:
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Dan CraciunIT ConsultantCommented:
What's wrong with:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \bq=anytexthere\b [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [F]

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HTH,
Dan
jammy-d0dgerAuthor Commented:
Thanks Dan,

Well, as mentioned in the question, this unfortunately stops timthumb requests from working because timthumb requests also have a parameter in the querystring of "q=".   However, in timthumb the q= parameter is always at the end of the querystring, but the exploit we want to stop, always has just a q= parameter on it's own, straight after the '?'

i.e. http://mydomainname.com/about/?q=hot_online_poker

So, my original code snippet works and does block these exploit links being used but it also blocks timthumb requests such as:

/timthumb.php?src=http://mydomainname.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/my-special-image-980x2100.jpg&w=980&h=212&q=90

...because of the q=90 on the end.

Hope that makes sense.
Dan CraciunIT ConsultantCommented:
OK. Then how about any text not starting with a number?
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \bq=[a-zA-Z][0-9a-zA-Z]*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [F]

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jammy-d0dgerAuthor Commented:
Ah Dan... that works a treat.  Can I include empty parameter in that too, i.e. ?q= with nothing after it, (currently this is not caught and get's through to the exploit).
Dan CraciunIT ConsultantCommented:
Use an OR:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \bq=$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \bq=[a-zA-Z][0-9a-zA-Z]*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [F]

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jammy-d0dgerAuthor Commented:
And that right there, is a solution.  Many thanks Dan.
Dan CraciunIT ConsultantCommented:
You're welcome.

Glad I could help!
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