CVE-2026-120544: Academy LMS path traversal / file read vulnerability
medium 4.3 plugin closed published 2026-11-03
- Affected versions
- 4.0.1 and older
- Fixed in
- unknown
- Severity
- Medium · CVSS 4.3
- Active installs
- closed
- Type
- Path traversal / file read
What an attacker needs
- Access: A logged-in account with Contributor-level access or higher.
CVSS vector (score by Wordfence): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
What to do now
- Replace Academy LMS. A closed plugin gets no updates through WordPress, so this hole stays open.
- Deactivate and delete it once you have a replacement (Plugins → Deactivate → Delete). Deactivating alone leaves its files on the server.
- Not sure which version you run? Check your version against every known Academy LMS issue.
- If you ran an affected version and something looks off (new admin users, spam pages, redirects), run the free scan below.
The advisory
The Academy LMS – AI Course Builder, Quizzes, Certificates & eLearning plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Directory Traversal in all versions up to, and including, 4.0.1 via the 'id' parameter. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with contributor-level access and above, to read the contents of arbitrary .html files on the server. The plugin appends a '.html' extension to the attacker-supplied path before reading it, so files with any other extension — including wp-config.php — are out of reach. The file's contents are returned in full in the REST JSON response's content field.
References
- NVD CVE-2026-120544 nvd.nist.gov
- Wordfence advisory www.wordfence.com
- Code change (fix) plugins.trac.wordpress.org
- Plugin source plugins.trac.wordpress.org
Related
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Where this data comes from
- CVE record, score and references: NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), checked 2026-11-04. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Versions and install counts: wordpress.org/plugins/academy (Plugins API), fetched 2026-11-04.
- The summary, “what an attacker needs” and “what to do” sections are our plain-English reading of the record and the plugin's release history; the quoted description is the record's own text. Spot an error? Email Daniel.