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Vulnerability and Exploits
data security E-learning Moodle security exploit Vulnerability and Exploits

This Vulnerability in E-Learning Platform Moodle Could Even Modify Exam Results

 

Critical Security Exploit in the popular e learning platform Moodle can be compromised that lets access to student data and test papers, the vulnerability can even modify exam results. The company is an open source e learning platform, used by 1,90,000 organizations across the world. Most of these organisations are educational institutes like college or university. A PHP objection vulnerability, the bug exists in Moodle's Shibboleth authentication module, which can permit malicious hackers to use RCE (Remote Code Execution), which can lead to a complete takeover of the server. 

If this happens, the attacker can have access to anything on the server, like student data, passwords, messages and exam grades. Penetration testers Robin Peraglie and Johannes Moritz found the flaw, they were hunting bugs in Moodle because of the previous findings of 2 RCE vulnerabilities in Moodle software. 

According to them, the vulnerability only exists in the Moodle LMS server having Shibboleth sign-in authentication allowed. It is disabled by default, which is a relief to the educational institutions that use the module. But in case if it's enabled, unauthorized hackers can perform a remote execution- arbitrary system commands. If this happens, it can lead to a complete hack of the server including user data leakage. Students can also use to it tamper with the exams before it actually happens. 

As per experts, the vulnerability is very easy to exploit. "After reporting the issue to Bugcrowd and, following a lengthy disclosure process, the flaw has now been patched. It took four months for the vulnerability to be triaged, revealed Moritz, who said he had the impression it was not treated as a priority. When asked why they didn’t report it directly to Moodle, which has its own vulnerability disclosure program, the researcher said they are “quite inflexible with providing patches because of their two-month release cycle”. Moritz did, however, reveal that the team also found  a second critical Moodle pre-authentication bug – details of which will be released following a separate, ongoing coordinated disclosure process," reports the Daily Swig.
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Zoom
Coronavirus E-learning Education Online courses Online learning Online lectures Technology Universities Video Conferencing Zoom

Universities Switch to Online Learning but Is it Enough?


With there being no apparent end in view of the pandemic, everyone has been forced to live within a confined space and spend their days not doing anything that needs going out.

Especially students all over the world are having a hard time managing things without the actual physical classes to dote on. Not that online lectures and a virtual education aren’t lucrative but most students find a lack of motivation a common problem.

With the dearth of options, available students are managing to adjust to the online learning life given most institutions have switched to various online mediums like Zoom, which is a great step, globally.

Universities are trying their best to make do with all the possible resources they have at their disposal. But is it okay to consider that online classes shall suffice?

What the students need at such a gloomy time is a way to make education and learning which could provide them technologically rich experience and not just a mere imitation of what otherwise happens in their classes.

The tech-world is overflowing with contemporary ideas of learning. There are hundreds of ways to create and design interactive sessions via podcasts, and virtual reality. Students, from the comfort of their homes, could be better learners if they encourage the right way and could induce better responses.

Online learning or online lectures shouldn’t just be a professor, going on and on for hours like in a physical class. There is such a variety of avenues to follow when it comes to technology-based learning that too, online.


During the past months, the number of students enrolled in online courses has increased substantially. There has also been a rise in the number of students joining full-time online courses.

People who weren’t as tech-savvy as all that lost their jobs and had to get back to studying for any possible chances of a career change.

Per sources, FutureLearn and UofPeople(University of People) have experienced a hike in demand for online courses because of people wanting to be productive in the days of quarantine by acquiring new skills.

According to reports, there has been seen a significant rise in the demand for online courses for the English language, health-related subjects, and mental health topics.

This culture of interactive online learning if does not limit itself to the pandemic times could lead to a better learning mechanism that would prove to be extremely efficacious for students all across the globe.

The availability of online platforms for students to begin or continue their education is massively contributing to lessening the number of chances of students deferring.

Even though the initial online courses that went and probably still do, by the name Moocs (Massive open online courses) weren’t so much of a big hit, but given the times of the “pandemic induced confinement”, people are warming up to them.

The current predicament has everyone bursting with uncertainty. There is no telling if universities would even begin their next sessions any time soon.

Everything can’t certainly be taught online, especially practical-learning which prompts a huge question mark to which no one has the right answer.

Realizing that there is no way to know when the universities would open and commence their normal operations with the added factor of social distancing, ‘the internet is all we have.'

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