CVE-2025-46918
📋 TL;DR
Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.22 and earlier contain a stored Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability that allows low-privileged attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into form fields. When victims 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 if combined with other vulnerabilities.
Likely Case
Attackers with low privileges could steal session tokens from other users, perform limited unauthorized actions within the application, or deface specific content pages.
If Mitigated
With proper input validation and output encoding controls, the vulnerability would be prevented, though the underlying code flaw would still exist.
🎯 Exploit Status
Requires authenticated low-privileged access. Exploitation is straightforward 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's distribution portal. 2. Apply the Service Pack following Adobe's installation guide. 3. Restart the AEM instance. 4. Verify successful installation through the AEM welcome screen.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Input Validation Filter
allImplement custom servlet filters to sanitize user input in form fields
Implement Java servlet filter with OWASP Java Encoder library for input sanitization
Content Security Policy
allImplement strict CSP headers to mitigate XSS impact
Add 'Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'' to HTTP headers
🧯 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 Welcome screen (http://[host]:[port]/libs/granite/core/content/login.html) or CRXDE Lite. Version should be 6.5.22 or earlier.Check Version:
curl -s http://[host]:[port]/libs/granite/core/content/login.html | grep 'AEM 6.5'Verify Fix Applied:
Confirm AEM version is 6.5.23 or later. Test form fields with basic XSS payloads (e.g., <script>alert('test')</script>) to ensure they're properly sanitized.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual content modifications by low-privileged users
- JavaScript payloads in request parameters
- Multiple failed login attempts followed by content edits
Network Indicators:
- HTTP requests containing script tags in form parameters
- Unusual outbound connections from AEM server after content updates
SIEM Query:
source="aem-access.log" AND ("<script>" OR "javascript:" OR "onerror=" OR "onload=")