CVE-2023-5550 | Moodle: rce due to lfi risk in some misconfigured shared hosting environments

In a shared hosting environment that has been misconfigured to allow access to other users' content, a Moodle user who also has direct access to the web server outside of the Moodle webroot could utilise a local file include to achieve remote code execution.

Published: 2023-11-09 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-5550 is rated Moderate Risk (54.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.47%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-5550

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-01-26 1.07% 1.47% +0.41%
2 2025-12-28 1.03% 1.07% +0.04%
3 2025-12-27 — 1.03% —

Full EPSS history (23 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-5550

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 2.5 [email protected]
9.8 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 3.9 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-5550

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-5550

GHSA-5cvx-cwpx-9rjh · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: composer — Moodle Code Injection vulnerability

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-5550

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-5550 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (moodle), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 8, needs-triage 3, ignored 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-5550

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-5550

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
moodle moodle < 3.9.24 cpe:2.3:a:moodle:moodle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
moodle moodle >= 3.11.0, < 3.11.17 cpe:2.3:a:moodle:moodle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
moodle moodle >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.11 cpe:2.3:a:moodle:moodle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
moodle moodle >= 4.1.0, < 4.1.6 cpe:2.3:a:moodle:moodle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
moodle moodle >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.3 cpe:2.3:a:moodle:moodle:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject extra_packages_for_enterprise_linux 7.0 cpe:2.3:a:fedoraproject:extra_packages_for_enterprise_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
fedoraproject fedora 38 cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:38:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-5550

cvelogic Threat Intelligence