Education ministry suspends Moodle over critical security vulnerabilities

Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research is temporarily suspending the Moodle learning environment from Thursday because of critical software vulnerabilities, ERR reports.

The ministry said the suspension is a preventive measure to protect the platform and the data processed in it from potential cyberattacks. It aims to prevent possible data leaks, damage to the learning environment and longer service disruptions.

The ministry is working with technical partners to install security updates as soon as possible. Moodle will return to normal operation after the updates have been installed and their effectiveness checked. The ministry said it would announce the platform’s reopening separately.

On Wednesday, the National Archives said several of its online services had been temporarily closed as a precaution or made accessible only from Estonian IP addresses. It said critical vulnerabilities had been found in PHP, widely used web software, and that it was installing security fixes.