Information Security in Learning Management Systems

Since 1960s the internet has grown to become a worldwide and borderless domain where many people share information from different parts of the world. In learning environment, different Learning Management Systems (LMSs) can be used to perform academic tasks as a way of e-learning. This thesis focuses three most common Open Source Learning Management Systems (OSLMSs), Atutor, Ilias and Moodle to analyze their security vulnerabilities based on information security triad which covers Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA). The study includes the discussion about LMSs, how secure they are, and how to test them. The study follows two ways as physical observation and logical test (scanner as a tool) to analyze LMSs. Some common drawbacks are noticed for all selected LMSs on physical observations. However logical tests performed by Nikto scanner that is analyzed based on S-OSVDB impacts show that Atutor has less vulnerabilities than the others. The techniques used to tests three LMSs in this thesis do not only help the learning environment to select the most secure LMS, but also help LMSs developers and users to point out the vulnerabilities of the LMSs. Keywords: Security issues in OSLMS, Nikto, OSVDB, S-OSVDB.