IBS: Intrusion block system a general security module for elearning systems

The design and implementation of a security plug-in for Learning Management Systems is presented. The plug-in (called IBS) can help in protecting a Leaning Management System from a varied selection of threats, carried on by malicious users via internet. Nowadays it is quite likely that the installer and/or administrator of a system are interested teachers, rather than skilled technicians. This is not a problem from the point of view of user friendliness and ease of use of the systems functionalities; those are actually features that motivate the widespread adoption of both proprietary and open source web-based learning systems. Yet, as any other web application, learning systems are subject to seamless discovery and publication of security weaknesses buried into their code. Accordingly, such systems present their administrators with apparent needs for continuous system upgrade and patches installation, which may turn out to became quite a burden for teachers. The integration of IBS in a system allows easing the above mentioned needs and can help the teachers to focus their work more on the pedagogical issues than on the technical ones. We report on the present integration of IBS in two well established open source Learning Management Systems (Moodle and Docebo), allowing for a reasonably standing protection from the threats comprised in five well known classes of "attacks". Besides describing the plug-in definition and functionalities, we focus in particular on the specification of a whole protocol, devised to guide the adaptation and installation of IBS in any other php-based learning system, which makes the applicability of the plug-in sufficiently wide. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.