MaharaCVEs & Vulnerabilities

An issue was discovered in Mahara 23.04.8 and 24.04.4. The use of a malicious export download URL can allow an attacker to download files that they do not have permission to download.

Mahara before 22.10.6, 23.04.6, and 24.04.1 allows cross-site scripting (XSS) via a file, with JavaScript code as part of its name, that is uploaded via the Mahara filebrowser system.

Supported versions of Mahara 24.04 before 24.04.1 and 23.04 before 23.04.6 are vulnerable to information being disclosed to an institution administrator under certain conditions via the 'Current submissions' page: Administration -> Groups -> Submissions.

Mahara before 24.04.9 exposes database connection information if the database becomes unreachable, e.g., due to the database server being temporarily down or too busy.

An issue was discovered in Mahara 23.04.8 and 24.04.4. Attackers may utilize escalation of privileges in certain cases when logging into Mahara with Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI).

In Mahara 23.04.8 and 24.04.4, the external RSS feed block can cause XSS if the external feed XML has a malicious value for the link attribute.

An issue was discovered in Mahara 24.04 before 24.04.2 and 23.04 before 23.04.7. The About, Contact, and Help footer links can be set up to be vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS) due to not sanitising the values. These links can only be set up by an admin but are clickable by any logged-in person.

Mahara before 22.10.4 and 23.x before 23.04.4 allows information disclosure if the experimental HTML bulk export is used via the administration interface or via the CLI, and the resulting export files are given to the account holders. They may contain images of other account holders because the cache is not cleared after the files of one account are exported.

Mahara 21.10 before 21.10.6, 22.04 before 22.04.4, and 22.10 before 22.10.1 allows unsafe font upload for skins. A particularly structured XML file could allow one to traverse the server to obtain access to secure files or cause code execution based on the payload.

Mahara 21.10 before 21.10.6, 22.04 before 22.04.4, and 22.10 before 22.10.1 deserializes user input unsafely during skin import. A particularly structured XML file could cause code execution when being processed.

Mahara 21.04 before 21.04.7, 21.10 before 21.10.5, 22.04 before 22.04.3, and 22.10 before 22.10.0 potentially allow a PDF export to trigger a remote shell if the site is running on Ubuntu and the flag -dSAFER is not set with Ghostscript.

In Mahara 21.04 before 21.04.7, 21.10 before 21.10.5, 22.04 before 22.04.3, and 22.10 before 22.10.0, embedded images are accessible without a sufficient permission check under certain conditions.

In Mahara 21.04 before 21.04.6, 21.10 before 21.10.4, and 22.04.2, files can sometimes be downloaded through thumb.php with no permission check.

In Mahara before 20.10.5, 21.04.4, 21.10.2, and 22.04.0, a site using Isolated Institutions is vulnerable if more than ten groups are used. They are all shown from page 2 of the group results list (rather than only being shown for the institution that the viewer is a member of).

Mahara before 20.10.5, 21.04.4, 21.10.2, and 22.04.0 allows stored XSS when a particular Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) class for embedly is used, and JavaScript code is constructed to perform an action.

Mahara before 20.10.5, 21.04.4, 21.10.2, and 22.04.0 is vulnerable to Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) because randomly generated tokens are too easily guessable.

In Mahara 21.04 before 21.04.3 and 21.10 before 21.10.1, portfolios created in groups that have not been shared with non-group members and portfolios created on the site and institution levels can be viewed without requiring a login if the URL to these portfolios is known.

In Mahara 20.10 before 20.10.4, 21.04 before 21.04.3, and 21.10 before 21.10.1, the names of folders in the Files area can be seen by a person not owning the folders. (Only folder names are affected. Neither file names nor file contents are affected.)

In Mahara before 20.04.5, 20.10.3, 21.04.2, and 21.10.0, the account associated with a web services token is vulnerable to being exploited and logged into, resulting in information disclosure (at a minimum) and often escalation of privileges.

In Mahara before 20.04.5, 20.10.3, 21.04.2, and 21.10.0, exported CSV files could contain characters that a spreadsheet program could interpret as a command, leading to execution of a malicious string locally on a device, aka CSV injection.

In Mahara before 20.04.5, 20.10.3, 21.04.2, and 21.10.0, exporting collections via PDF export could lead to code execution via shell metacharacters in a collection name. Additional, in Mahara before 20.10.4, 21.04.3, and 21.10.1, exporting collections via PDF export could cause code execution

In Mahara before 20.04.5, 20.10.3, 21.04.2, and 21.10.0, certain tag syntax could be used for XSS, such as via a SCRIPT element.

In Mahara before 20.04.5, 20.10.3, 21.04.2, and 21.10.0, adjusting the path component for the page help file allows attackers to bypass the intended access control for HTML files via directory traversal. It replaces the - character with the / character.

Mahara 20.10 is affected by Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) that allows a remote attacker to remove inbox-mail on the server. The application fails to validate the CSRF token for a POST request. An attacker can craft a module/multirecipientnotification/inbox.php pieform_delete_all_notifications request, which leads to removing all messages from a mailbox.

In Mahara 19.04 before 19.04.6, 19.10 before 19.10.4, and 20.04 before 20.04.1, certain places could execute file or folder names containing JavaScript.

In Mahara 19.04 before 19.04.5 and 19.10 before 19.10.3, account details are shared in the Elasticsearch results for accounts that are not accessible when the config setting 'Isolated institutions' is turned on.

In Mahara 18.10 before 18.10.5, 19.04 before 19.04.4, and 19.10 before 19.10.2, file metadata information is disclosed to group members in the Elasticsearch result list despite them not having access to that artefact anymore.

In Mahara 18.10 before 18.10.5, 19.04 before 19.04.4, and 19.10 before 19.10.2, certain personal information is discoverable inspecting network responses on the 'Edit access' screen when sharing portfolios.

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Mahara 1.4.x before 1.4.3 and 1.5.x before 1.5.2 allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via vectors related to (1) javascript innerHTML as used when generating login forms, (2) links or (3) resources URLs, and (4) the Display name in a user profile.

Cross-site Scripting (XSS) in Mahara before 1.5.9 and 1.6.x before 1.6.4 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the TinyMCE editor.

An issue was discovered in Mahara 17.10 before 17.10.8, 18.04 before 18.04.4, and 18.10 before 18.10.1. A site administrator can suspend the system user (root), causing all users to be locked out from the system.

An issue was discovered in Mahara 17.10 before 17.10.8, 18.04 before 18.04.4, and 18.10 before 18.10.1. The collection title is vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS) due to not escaping it when viewing the collection's SmartEvidence overview page (if that feature is turned on). This can be exploited by any logged-in user.

Mahara 17.04 before 17.04.8 and 17.10 before 17.10.5 and 18.04 before 18.04.1 can be used as medium to transmit viruses by placing infected files into a Leap2A archive and uploading that to Mahara. In contrast to other ZIP files that are uploaded, ClamAV (when activated) does not check Leap2A archives for viruses, allowing malicious files to be available for download. While files cannot be executed on Mahara itself, Mahara can be used to transfer such files to user computers.

Mahara 17.04 before 17.04.8 and 17.10 before 17.10.5 and 18.04 before 18.04.1 are vulnerable to the browser "back and refresh" attack. This allows malicious users with physical access to the web browser of a Mahara user, after they have logged in, to potentially gain access to their Mahara credentials.

Mahara 17.04 before 17.04.8 and 17.10 before 17.10.5 and 18.04 before 18.04.1 are vulnerable to mentioning the usernames that are already taken by people registered in the system rather than masking that information.

Mahara 16.10 before 16.10.9 and 17.04 before 17.04.7 and 17.10 before 17.10.4 are vulnerable to bad input when TinyMCE is bypassed by POST packages. Therefore, Mahara should not rely on TinyMCE's code stripping alone but also clean input on the server / PHP side as one can create own packets of POST data containing bad content with which to hit the server.

Mahara 16.10 before 16.10.7, 17.04 before 17.04.5, and 17.10 before 17.10.2 are vulnerable to being forced, via a man-in-the-middle attack, to interact with Mahara on the HTTP protocol rather than HTTPS even when an SSL certificate is present.

Mahara 16.10 before 16.10.7 and 17.04 before 17.04.5 and 17.10 before 17.10.2 have a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability when a user enters invalid UTF-8 characters. These are now going to be discarded in Mahara along with NULL characters and invalid Unicode characters. Mahara will also avoid direct $_GET and $_POST usage where possible, and instead use param_exists() and the correct param_*() function to fetch the expected value.

An issue was discovered in Mahara before 18.10.0. It mishandled user requests that could discontinue a user's ability to maintain their own account (changing username, changing primary email address, deleting account). The correct behavior was to either prompt them for their password and/or send a warning to their primary email address.

Mahara Mobile before 1.2.1 is vulnerable to passwords being sent to the Mahara access log in plain text.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.13 and 16.04 before 16.04.7 and 16.10 before 16.10.4 and 17.04 before 17.04.2 are vulnerable to recording plain text passwords in the event_log table during the user creation process if full event logging was turned on.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.9 and 15.10 before 15.10.5 and 16.04 before 16.04.3 are vulnerable to a group's configuration page being editable by any group member even when they didn't have the admin role.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.8 and 15.10 before 15.10.4 and 16.04 before 16.04.2 are vulnerable to profile pictures being accessed without any access control checks consequently allowing any of a user's uploaded profile pictures to be viewable by anyone, whether or not they were currently selected as the "default" or used in any pages.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.8 and 15.10 before 15.10.4 and 16.04 before 16.04.2 are vulnerable to some authentication methods, which do not use Mahara's built-in login form, still allowing users to log in even if their institution was expired or suspended.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.10 and 15.10 before 15.10.6 and 16.04 before 16.04.4 are vulnerable to incorrect access control after the password reset link is sent via email and then user changes default email, Mahara fails to invalidate old link.Consequently the link in email can be used to gain access to the user's account.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.7 and 15.10 before 15.10.3 running PHP 5.3 are vulnerable to one user being logged in as another user on a separate computer as the same session ID is served. This situation can occur when a user takes an action that forces another user to be logged out of Mahara, such as an admin changing another user's account settings.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.9 and 15.10 before 15.10.5 and 16.04 before 16.04.3 are vulnerable to passwords or other sensitive information being passed by unusual parameters to end up in an error log.

Mahara 15.04 before 15.04.7 and 15.10 before 15.10.3 are vulnerable to prevent session IDs from being regenerated on login or logout. This makes users of the site more vulnerable to session fixation attacks.