CVE-2025-43796
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability allows remote attackers to perform denial-of-service attacks on Liferay Portal/DXP by exploiting GraphQL queries that return unlimited objects. Attackers can overwhelm server resources by executing queries that retrieve large datasets. Affected systems include Liferay Portal 7.4.0-7.4.3.101 and Liferay DXP 2023.Q3.0-2023.Q3.4, 7.4 GA-update 92, and 7.3 GA-update 35.
💻 Affected Systems
- Liferay Portal
- Liferay DXP
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete service unavailability due to resource exhaustion, affecting all users and potentially causing business disruption.
Likely Case
Performance degradation or temporary service outages during attack periods.
If Mitigated
Minimal impact with proper query limiting and resource monitoring in place.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires only basic GraphQL knowledge and can be performed without authentication.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Liferay Portal 7.4.3.102+, Liferay DXP 2023.Q3.5+, 7.4 update 93+, 7.3 update 36+
Vendor Advisory: https://liferay.dev/portal/security/known-vulnerabilities/-/asset_publisher/jekt/content/CVE-2025-43796
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Download appropriate patch from Liferay customer portal. 2. Apply patch following Liferay's patching documentation. 3. Restart application server. 4. Verify patch application.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Implement GraphQL Query Limiting
allConfigure GraphQL to limit maximum query depth and complexity
Configure in Liferay's portal-ext.properties: graphql.servlet.maxQueryDepth=10
graphql.servlet.maxQueryComplexity=100
Rate Limit GraphQL Endpoints
allImplement rate limiting on /o/graphql endpoints
Configure via web server (nginx/apache) or application firewall
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement WAF rules to block suspicious GraphQL queries
- Monitor and alert on abnormal GraphQL query patterns
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Liferay version via Control Panel → Configuration → Server Administration → System InformationCheck Version:
Check via Liferay Control Panel or examine liferay-portal.xml versionVerify Fix Applied:
Verify version is patched and test GraphQL queries with large object requests return errors📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- High frequency of GraphQL queries
- Large response sizes in access logs
- Increased memory/CPU usage patterns
Network Indicators:
- Spike in traffic to /o/graphql endpoints
- Large POST requests to GraphQL API
SIEM Query:
source="liferay" AND (uri_path="/o/graphql" AND response_size>1000000)