CVE-2017-17455
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 · uneditedMahara 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.
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 confidenceMahara fails to enforce HTTPS connections, allowing a man-in-the-middle attacker to downgrade the connection to HTTP even when a valid SSL certificate is present on the server. The application does not properly validate or force SSL/TLS usage.
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>= 16.10.0, < 16.10.7>= 17.04.0, < 17.04.5>= 17.10.0, < 17.10.2CVSS 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
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
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 Mahara installed versionLocate the version file in your Mahara installation directory (commonly version.php or similar) and read the version number. Alternatively, access the Mahara admin dashboard and navigate to Site Administration -> Overview to view the version information.Affected if The installed version falls within 16.10.0 to 16.10.6, 17.04.0 to 17.04.4, or 17.10.0 to 17.10.1.
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Check wwwroot configurationOpen the Mahara config.php file (typically located at config.php in the Mahara root directory) and locate the 'wwwroot' setting. Verify whether the value starts with 'https://' or 'http://'.Affected if The wwwroot is set to use 'http://' instead of 'https://', or if the protocol is not explicitly set to HTTPS.
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Verify web server enforces HTTPS redirectInspect your web server configuration (Apache .htaccess or nginx config) to determine if all HTTP requests are configured to redirect to HTTPS. Test by attempting to access the site via HTTP and observing if you are automatically redirected to HTTPS.Affected if The web server does not have a configured redirect from HTTP to HTTPS, or the redirect is missing/inactive.
You are affected if your Mahara version is within the vulnerable ranges AND either the wwwroot is not configured with HTTPS or your web server does not enforce HTTP-to-HTTPS redirection.
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 data16.10.717.04.517.10.2
Configure Mahara's 'wwwroot' to use HTTPS and ensure the web server (Apache/nginx) is set to redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS, effectively preventing protocol downgrade attacks.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-17455 — 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-2017-17455 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
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