CVE-2025-46842
📋 TL;DR
Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.22 and earlier contain a stored XSS vulnerability where low-privileged attackers can inject malicious scripts into form fields. When users visit pages with these compromised fields, their browsers execute the attacker's JavaScript. This affects organizations using vulnerable AEM instances for content management.
💻 Affected Systems
- Adobe Experience Manager
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Attackers could steal session cookies, redirect users to malicious sites, perform actions on behalf of authenticated users, or deploy additional malware payloads.
Likely Case
Session hijacking, credential theft, or defacement of web content through injected scripts.
If Mitigated
Limited impact with proper input validation, output encoding, and Content Security Policy headers in place.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated low-privileged access to inject scripts into vulnerable fields.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 6.5.23 or later
Vendor Advisory: https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/experience-manager/apsb25-48.html
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Backup your AEM instance. 2. Download and apply AEM 6.5.23 or later from Adobe's distribution portal. 3. Restart the AEM service. 4. Verify the update completed successfully.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Implement Content Security Policy
allAdd CSP headers to restrict script execution from untrusted sources
Add 'Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'' to web server configuration
Input Validation Filter
allDeploy custom servlet filter to sanitize form field inputs
Implement Java filter using OWASP Java Encoder or similar library
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Restrict low-privileged user access to content editing capabilities
- Implement web application firewall rules to block XSS payload patterns
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check AEM version via CRXDE Lite or system console. If version is 6.5.22 or earlier, system is vulnerable.Check Version:
curl -u admin:password http://localhost:4502/system/console/status-productinfo | grep 'Adobe Experience Manager'Verify Fix Applied:
After patching, verify version is 6.5.23 or later and test form fields with XSS payloads to confirm sanitization.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual content modifications by low-privileged users
- Requests containing script tags or JavaScript in form parameters
Network Indicators:
- Outbound connections to suspicious domains from AEM server
SIEM Query:
source="aem-access.log" AND ("<script" OR "javascript:" OR "onload=" OR "onerror=")