CVE-2025-54744: MasterStudy LMS Authorization Bypass Flaw

CVE-2025-54744 Overview

CVE-2025-54744 is a missing authorization vulnerability in the Stylemix MasterStudy LMS plugin for WordPress. The flaw affects versions up to and including 3.6.15 of the masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system plugin. It stems from incorrectly configured access control checks, allowing authenticated users with low privileges to perform actions restricted to higher-privileged roles. The weakness is classified under CWE-862: Missing Authorization. Successful exploitation can compromise the integrity of learning management system data without requiring user interaction.

Critical Impact

Authenticated attackers with low-level privileges can modify protected LMS data over the network, leading to high integrity impact on course content, user records, and platform configuration.

Affected Products

• Stylemix MasterStudy LMS WordPress plugin, versions up to and including 3.6.15
• WordPress installations running the masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system plugin
• Any learning platform or online course site that depends on MasterStudy LMS for access control

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-09-05 - CVE-2025-54744 published to the National Vulnerability Database
• 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-54744

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a broken access control issue in the MasterStudy LMS plugin. One or more plugin endpoints do not properly verify that the caller holds the required capabilities before executing sensitive operations. An authenticated user with low-privileged access, such as a student or subscriber, can invoke functionality intended for administrators or instructors.

The impact profile focuses on integrity. Attackers cannot directly read confidential data or crash the site through this flaw, but they can alter records the plugin manages. In an LMS context this can include course structures, lesson content, quizzes, grades, enrollment status, and instructor assignments.

Exploitation is network-based, requires low attack complexity, and needs only a valid low-privileged account. No victim interaction is required. Given the open registration model of many WordPress LMS deployments, valid accounts are often trivial to obtain.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing authorization enforcement in server-side handlers. The affected plugin routes rely on authentication but omit capability checks such as current_user_can() or nonce and role verification. This design gap allows any authenticated session to reach privileged code paths.

Attack Vector

An attacker registers or authenticates as a standard LMS user. The attacker then issues crafted HTTP requests to the vulnerable plugin endpoints, typically WordPress AJAX or REST routes exposed by masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system. Because the server does not validate the caller's role, the requested action executes with elevated effect. See the Patchstack Vulnerability Report for additional context on the affected functionality.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-54744

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected modifications to courses, lessons, quizzes, or user enrollment records in the WordPress database
• Requests to MasterStudy LMS AJAX or REST endpoints originating from accounts with low-privileged roles such as subscriber or student
• New or altered instructor assignments that do not correlate with administrator activity
• Spikes in admin-ajax.php or /wp-json/ traffic tied to the masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system plugin

Detection Strategies

• Review WordPress audit logs for privileged LMS actions performed by non-administrator accounts
• Correlate HTTP request logs with the WordPress user role of the authenticated session
• Deploy a web application firewall rule that flags LMS plugin endpoints called with mismatched capability context
• Monitor plugin version inventory to identify sites still running MasterStudy LMS 3.6.15 or earlier

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable verbose logging on wp-admin/admin-ajax.php and REST API routes exposed by the plugin
• Alert on database writes to LMS tables from sessions belonging to low-privileged users
• Track newly registered accounts that immediately interact with administrative LMS endpoints

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-54744

Immediate Actions Required

• Upgrade MasterStudy LMS to a version released after 3.6.15 that addresses the missing authorization check
• Audit existing LMS content, user roles, and instructor assignments for unauthorized changes
• Restrict new user registration on affected sites until the plugin is patched
• Rotate credentials for any account that shows unexpected LMS activity

Patch Information

Stylemix has published a fixed release addressed via the Patchstack Vulnerability Report. Site owners should update the masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system plugin to the latest available version through the WordPress plugin manager.

Workarounds

• Temporarily disable the MasterStudy LMS plugin on sites that cannot be patched immediately
• Use a web application firewall to block requests to vulnerable plugin endpoints from non-administrator sessions
• Limit account creation to invitation-only workflows to reduce the pool of low-privileged attackers
• Enforce least privilege by removing unused subscriber and student accounts

# Update the MasterStudy LMS plugin via WP-CLI
wp plugin update masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system

# Verify the installed version is above 3.6.15
wp plugin get masterstudy-lms-learning-management-system --field=version