CVE-2025-43791
📋 TL;DR
This CVE describes multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Liferay Portal and DXP that allow remote attackers to inject malicious scripts or HTML into rich text fields. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities to steal session cookies, redirect users to malicious sites, or perform actions on behalf of authenticated users. Organizations using affected Liferay versions with rich text fields in web content, documents, or custom assets are vulnerable.
💻 Affected Systems
- Liferay Portal
- Liferay DXP
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Attackers could steal administrator session cookies, gain administrative access to the portal, exfiltrate sensitive data, or deploy malware to users' browsers.
Likely Case
Attackers steal user session cookies to hijack accounts, perform unauthorized actions, or redirect users to phishing sites.
If Mitigated
With proper input validation and output encoding, the impact is limited to minor UI disruption without code execution.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires attacker to have access to create or edit content with rich text fields. No public exploit code is available as of analysis.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Liferay Portal 7.4.3.112+ and 7.3.7+; Liferay DXP 2023.Q4.1+ and 2023.Q3.5+
Vendor Advisory: https://liferay.dev/portal/security/known-vulnerabilities/-/asset_publisher/jekt/content/CVE-2025-43791
Restart Required: No
Instructions:
1. Download the appropriate patch from Liferay's customer portal. 2. Apply the patch using Liferay's patching tool. 3. Verify the patch was applied successfully. 4. Test rich text field functionality.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Input Validation for Rich Text Fields
allImplement server-side input validation to sanitize HTML and script content in rich text fields before processing.
Content Security Policy (CSP)
allImplement strict CSP headers to prevent execution of injected scripts even if XSS payloads are successful.
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Disable rich text editing for untrusted users or restrict to trusted administrators only.
- Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to block XSS payload patterns in rich text submissions.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Liferay version via Control Panel > Configuration > Server Administration > System Information. Compare against affected versions.Check Version:
Check via Liferay Control Panel or examine liferay-portal.xml version property.Verify Fix Applied:
After patching, test rich text fields with basic XSS payloads like <script>alert('test')</script> to ensure they are properly sanitized.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual rich text field submissions containing script tags or JavaScript code
- Multiple failed rich text submissions from single IP
Network Indicators:
- HTTP POST requests to rich text endpoints with suspicious payloads
- Outbound connections to external domains following rich text submissions
SIEM Query:
source="liferay" AND (message="*<script>*" OR message="*javascript:*") AND uri="*/rich-text/*"