Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
This Moodle flaw could let a user who is already allowed to restore courses grant extra permissions to roles inside that course. It is not described as unauthenticated or system-wide, but it can undermine course-level access control and should be fixed on affected Moodle versions.
Executive priority
Treat this as a moderate-priority access-control fix. It is most urgent for institutions that delegate course restore rights broadly or run unsupported Moodle versions. There is no source-bundle evidence of active exploitation.
Technical view
CVE-2020-25699 is a CWE-863 authorization issue in Moodle course restore handling. Insufficient capability checks could allow restore-capable users to add additional capabilities to course roles. Affected branches include 3.9 through 3.9.2, 3.8 through 3.8.5, 3.7 through 3.7.8, 3.5 through 3.5.14, and earlier unsupported versions.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely on Moodle sites running the listed affected versions where non-administrative users can restore courses. Unsupported older Moodle deployments should be treated as potentially exposed based on the CVE description.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show CISA KEV listing, active exploitation, public exploit status, or weaponized details. The described abuse requires a user with course restore ability and affects role capabilities within that course.
Researcher notes
The issue is constrained by existing restore capability but may enable course-level privilege expansion through improper authorization checks. No CVSS vector, patch diff, or exploit evidence is included in the provided bundle, so severity confidence is limited.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade Moodle to 3.9.3, 3.8.6, 3.7.9, 3.5.15, 3.10, or later supported releases.
- If using Fedora packages, follow the referenced Fedora Moodle package advisories.
- Restrict course restore permissions to trusted roles until upgrades are complete.
- Retire or replace earlier unsupported Moodle versions.
- Check current Moodle vendor guidance for any branch-specific upgrade notes.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Moodle versions and compare them with the affected and fixed version ranges.
- Review which roles and users have course restore capability.
- Confirm production Moodle reports a fixed or later supported version.
- Review course roles for unexpected added capabilities after restore activity.
- Check administrative records for recent course restore activity by non-admin users.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-863: Authorization and privilege behavior lookup
Authorization weaknesses can support privilege escalation and valid-account review, depending on exploit path. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2020-25699 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1895425CVE reference
- https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=413936CVE reference
- FEDORA-2020-304aa2c365CVE reference · vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2020-db73e37548CVE reference · vendor-advisory
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Incorrect Authorization
Incorrect Authorization represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.