Is Academy LMS safe? Known vulnerabilities and latest version

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.

The Academy LMS – AI Course Builder, Quizzes, Certificates & eLearning plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to authorization bypass in all versions up to, and including, 4.0.3. This is due to the plugin not properly verifying that a user is authorized to perform an action. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with custom-level access and above, to permanently delete arbitrary Academy lesson comments and their replies authored by any user, including administrators, across courses they do not instruct. This is exploitable by any user registered as an Academy instructor for at least one course, as they can supply their own course_id to pass the instructor check while targeting comments belonging to entirely different courses.

The Academy LMS – AI Course Builder, Quizzes, Certificates & eLearning plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Privilege Escalation in all versions up to, and including, 4.0.3. This is due to the `add_child()` function calling `add_role('academy_student')` on any existing account resolved from the attacker-supplied `email` parameter before `Store::link()` validates the guardian-ward relationship, and failing to roll back that role write when `Store::link()` returns a `WP_Error`. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers with the `academy_guardian` role or higher to elevate any existing WordPress account — including their own — to the `academy_student` role, gaining `edit_posts` (Contributor-equivalent) capabilities and, when the student file-upload setting is enabled, `upload_files` (Author-equivalent) capabilities not granted to the guardian role. When a guardian supplies their own email address, `email_exists()` resolves to their own user ID, causing `Store::link()` to reject the self-link, but because the `add_role()` call has already executed and is never reversed, the academy_student role grant on their own account persists permanently.

The Academy LMS WordPress plugin before 4.0.0 does not verify course enrollment or object ownership when returning a lesson's content through one of its REST API routes, allowing users with a self-registerable student account to read the full content of arbitrary lessons, including lessons of paid or private courses they are not enrolled in.

The Academy LMS WordPress plugin before 4.0.0 does not verify that a quiz question belongs to the course the requesting user is authorized to access before returning that question's answer options, allowing any authenticated user with access to a single course, such as an enrolled student, to read the quiz answer options of questions belonging to other courses they are not enrolled in.

The Academy LMS WordPress plugin before 3.8.3 does not verify course enrollment or lesson publication status when returning a single lesson through its REST API, allowing users with a self-service student (Subscriber-level) account to disclose the content of arbitrary lessons, including lessons of paid courses they are not enrolled in and unpublished (draft, pending, private) lessons.

The Academy LMS WordPress plugin through 3.8.2 does not restrict access to quiz attempt records to their owner, allowing any authenticated user with subscriber-level access and above (enrolled in any single course) to read every user's quiz attempts across the whole site, including personal data such as IP addresses, names, registration dates and quiz results.

The Academy LMS WordPress plugin before 3.8.1 does not verify ownership of a user-supplied user identifier in several of its lesson AJAX handlers, allowing authenticated users with subscriber-level access to read and modify other users' lesson notes and mark other users' lesson content as completed.

The Academy LMS – WordPress LMS Plugin for Complete eLearning Solution plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference in all versions up to, and including, 3.8.0 via the 'save_lesson_note', 'get_lesson_note', and 'complete_lesson_video' AJAX handlers due to missing validation on a user controlled key. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Subscriber-level access and above, to read, overwrite, or delete the private lesson notes of any other user (including administrators), and to falsify lesson-completion progress for arbitrary users.

The Academy LMS – WordPress LMS Plugin for Complete eLearning Solution plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Insecure Direct Object Reference in versions up to, and including, 3.8.1. This is due to the '/topics' REST API endpoint being registered with a permission callback set to '__return_true', allowing unauthenticated access to course curriculum data without verifying the course's post status or user enrollment. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to access detailed curriculum information for private, draft, scheduled, or password-protected courses by enumerating course IDs.

Missing Authorization vulnerability in Kodezen LLC Academy LMS academy allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through <= 3.5.3.

The Academy LMS – WordPress LMS Plugin for Complete eLearning Solution plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation via account takeover in all versions up to, and including, 3.5.0. This is due to the plugin not properly validating a user's identity prior to updating their password and relying solely on a publicly-exposed nonce for authorization. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to change arbitrary user's password, including administrators, and gain access to their account.

Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') vulnerability in Kodezen LLC Academy LMS academy allows Stored XSS.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through <= 3.4.0.

The Academy LMS – WordPress LMS Plugin for Complete eLearning Solution plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to PHP Object Injection in all versions up to, and including, 3.3.8 via deserialization of untrusted input in the 'import_all_courses' function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Administrator-level access and above, to inject a PHP Object. No known POP chain is present in the vulnerable software, which means this vulnerability has no impact unless another plugin or theme containing a POP chain is installed on the site. If a POP chain is present via an additional plugin or theme installed on the target system, it may allow the attacker to perform actions like delete arbitrary files, retrieve sensitive data, or execute code depending on the POP chain present.

Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in Kodezen LLC Academy LMS academy allows Exploiting Incorrectly Configured Access Control Security Levels.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through <= 3.3.4.

Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in Academy LMS.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through 2.0.4.

URL Redirection to Untrusted Site ('Open Redirect') vulnerability in Kodezen Limited Academy LMS.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through 2.0.4.

Missing Authorization vulnerability in Academy LMS academy.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through 1.9.16.

Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor vulnerability in Academy LMS academy.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through 1.9.25.

Missing Authorization vulnerability in Academy LMS.This issue affects Academy LMS: from n/a through 1.9.16.

The Academy LMS – eLearning and online course solution for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to privilege escalation in all versions up to, and including, 1.9.19. This is due to plugin allowing arbitrary user meta updates through the saved_user_info() function. This makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with minimal permissions such as students, to elevate their user role to that of an administrator.