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MaharaApplication

CVE-2022-29585

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-04-28
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 20.10.5 / 21.04.4 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 · unedited
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).

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 confidence

This is an authorization bypass in Mahara's group visibility where the 'Isolated Institutions' feature fails to properly filter group results from page 2 onwards in the group directory. When more than ten groups exist (triggering pagination), users can see groups they should not have access to—groups from other institutions are incorrectly displayed instead of being restricted to only the viewer's institution.

MitigationUpgrade Mahara to version 20.10.5, 21.04.4, 21.10.2, or 22.04.0 or later to patch the group filtering logic in the pagination code.

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
MaharaApplication
Affected:< 20.10.5>= 21.04.0, < 21.04.4>= 21.10.0, < 21.10.2= 22.04.0

CVSS 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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify installed Mahara version
    Check the version.php file in the Mahara root directory or access the admin interface at Site Administration > Configuration > General settings to view the installed version number
    Affected if The installed version is less than 20.10.5, or between 21.04.0 and 21.04.4 inclusive, between 21.10.0 and 21.10.2 inclusive, or exactly 22.04.0
  2. Confirm Isolated Institutions feature is enabled
    Access Site Administration > Institutions, select an institution, and verify that the 'Allow institution members to be isolated' or similar isolation setting is enabled for any institution
    Affected if The Isolated Institutions feature is turned on for one or more institutions in the system
  3. Verify presence of multiple institutions with groups
    Navigate to the Groups section and check if there are more than one institution that owns groups, or query the database table 'group' to count groups across different institutions
    Affected if Multiple institutions each own at least one group in the system
  4. Check for pagination-triggering group count
    In the group directory, determine if there are more than 10 groups total (which triggers pagination), or check the database for total group count
    Affected if There are more than 10 groups in the system, causing the group directory to paginate results
  5. Test pagination filtering on page 2+
    Log in as a user in an isolated institution, navigate to the group directory, and click to view page 2 or higher; verify whether groups from other institutions appear that the user should not be able to see
    Affected if When viewing page 2 or beyond in the group directory, groups belonging to other institutions are displayed to a user who should only see their own institution's groups

You are affected if your Mahara version is vulnerable AND the Isolated Institutions feature is enabled AND you have pagination (more than 10 groups) in your group directory, allowing users to see groups from other institutions on pages 2+.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 20.10.5 / 21.04.4 / 21.10.2 or later
Fixed in 20.10.521.04.421.10.2
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Mahara to version 20.10.5, 21.04.4, 21.10.2, or 22.04.0 or later to patch the group filtering logic in the pagination code.

Recommended fix High confidence

Upgrade to 20.10.5 (for 20.x), 21.04.4 (for 21.04.x), 21.10.2 (for 21.10.x), or 22.04.1+ (for 22.04.0)

  1. 1. Back up your Mahara database and all site files including the htpasswd/ldapauth configuration.
  2. 2. Identify your current Mahara version from the administration panel or version.php file.
  3. 3. Determine which upgrade path applies: for 20.x versions, upgrade to 20.10.5 or later; for 21.04.x versions, upgrade to 21.04.4 or later; for 21.10.x versions, upgrade to 21.10.2 or later; for 22.04.0, upgrade to the next stable release (22.04.1 or later).
  4. 4. Download the appropriate Mahara upgrade package from https://launchpad.net/mahara/+download.
  5. 5. Place the site in maintenance mode via Site Administration > Configure site > Site options > Turn maintenance mode on.
  6. 6. Extract the new Mahara files to replace the existing installation, preserving your config.php and any custom local code in lib/local.
  7. 7. Run the database upgrade by accessing /admin/upgrade.php in your browser.
  8. 8. Verify the upgrade completed successfully and turn off maintenance mode.
Caveat Mahara minor version upgrades typically include database changes; always test on a staging environment before production deployment

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Mahara Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
11.0 hours of engineering $1,930
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,088.

Scan for this in your stack

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2022-29585 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data