MoodleCMS
CVE-2011-4296
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedlib/db/access.php in Moodle 2.0.x before 2.0.4 and 2.1.x before 2.1.1 assigns incorrect capabilities to the course-creator role, which allows remote authenticated users to modify course filters by leveraging this role.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceIn Moodle 2.0.x before 2.0.4 and 2.1.x before 2.1.1, the lib/db/access.php file incorrectly assigns elevated capabilities to the course-creator role. This misconfiguration grants course-creator users the ability to modify course filters, which should not be a permitted action for this role. An authenticated user with course-creator privileges can exploit this to alter filter settings they should not have access to.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
MoodleCMS
= 2.0.0= 2.0.1= 2.0.2= 2.0.3= 2.1.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- Single
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Moodle versionCheck the version.php file in the Moodle root directory or access the admin page that displays the Moodle versionAffected if The installed version is 2.0.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.0.3, or 2.1.0
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Locate the access.php fileNavigate to lib/db/access.php in the Moodle installation directoryAffected if The file exists at lib/db/access.php in the Moodle root
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Examine course-creator role capabilitiesOpen lib/db/access.php and search for the 'course-creator' role definition. Look for capability entries related to filters such as 'filter/manage' or similar filter modification capabilitiesAffected if The course-creator role definition in lib/db/access.php contains capabilities allowing filter management or modification (such as filter/manage)
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Verify filter capability assignmentIn lib/db/access.php, locate the capability array for the course-creator role and identify if any filter-related capabilities are present that should not be granted to this roleAffected if Any filter modification capabilities are assigned to the course-creator role in the access.php file
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Confirm authenticated course-creator users existIn the Moodle admin interface, navigate to Users > Permissions > Assign system roles and check if any users are assigned the course-creator roleAffected if Any authenticated users hold the course-creator role and the Moodle version is affected
A user is affected if running Moodle 2.0.0-2.0.3 or 2.1.0 and the lib/db/access.php file grants filter modification capabilities to the course-creator role.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade to Moodle 2.0.4, 2.1.1, or later. The fix requires correcting the capability definitions in lib/db/access.php to remove the inappropriate filter modification permissions from the course-creator role.
Fix this in Moodle
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,664.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2011-4296 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2011-4296 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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