CVE-2025-46898
📋 TL;DR
Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.22 and earlier contain a stored XSS vulnerability that allows low-privileged attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into form fields. When users visit pages containing the compromised fields, their browsers execute the attacker's code. 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 administrator session cookies, perform actions as authenticated users, deface websites, or redirect users to malicious sites, potentially leading to full system compromise.
Likely Case
Attackers with low privileges inject malicious scripts to steal session tokens or credentials from users who view affected pages, enabling privilege escalation or data theft.
If Mitigated
With proper input validation and output encoding, malicious scripts are neutralized, preventing execution and limiting impact to failed injection attempts.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated access; stored XSS typically has low complexity once vulnerable fields are identified.
🛠️ 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. Download AEM 6.5.23 or later from Adobe. 2. Apply the update following Adobe's upgrade documentation. 3. Restart AEM instances. 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 HTTP headers
Input Validation Filter
allDeploy custom servlet filters to sanitize user input in form fields.
Implement Java filter to encode <, >, &, ", ' characters in POST parameters
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Restrict low-privileged user access to content editing capabilities.
- Monitor and audit user-generated content for suspicious script patterns.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check AEM version via OSGi console or CRXDE; 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 for XSS by attempting to inject basic scripts.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual POST requests to form submission endpoints with script tags
- Error logs showing failed script execution attempts
Network Indicators:
- HTTP traffic containing malicious script payloads in form data
SIEM Query:
source="aem.log" AND "POST" AND ("<script>" OR "javascript:")