It is a known fact that phpNuke is using a simple form of CAPTCHA (called security code), which will try to resist against automated actions - login brute force, account creation DoS, etc. phpNuke, with the standard 6-digit CAPTCHA, can be easily attacked not only by human, but also by any malicious script exploiting the design weakness.
It is a good move to use not-a-standard-phpnuke-captcha. However, for a newbie, it is not an easy task.
I've written a guide to change the captcha from 6 digits to 8. Read the full article at http://zulkiplyharun.com