CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-14879

Improper Check for Dropped Privileges

Published: Jan 07, 2020 | Modified: Mar 31, 2020
CVSS 3.x
5.4
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
CVSS 2.x
5.5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

A vulnerability was found in Moodle versions 3.7.x before 3.7.3, 3.6.x before 3.6.7 and 3.5.x before 3.5.9. When a cohort role assignment was removed, the associated capabilities were not being revoked (where applicable).

Weakness

The product attempts to drop privileges but does not check or incorrectly checks to see if the drop succeeded.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Moodle Moodle 3.5.0 (including) 3.5.8 (including)
Moodle Moodle 3.6.0 (including) 3.6.6 (including)
Moodle Moodle 3.7.0 (including) 3.7.2 (including)
Moodle Ubuntu bionic *
Moodle Ubuntu disco *
Moodle Ubuntu eoan *
Moodle Ubuntu trusty *
Moodle Ubuntu xenial *

Potential Mitigations

  • Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
  • Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.

References