CVE-2025-46983
📋 TL;DR
A stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Adobe Experience Manager allows low-privileged attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into vulnerable form fields. When victims browse pages containing these fields, their browsers execute the attacker's scripts. This affects AEM versions 6.5.22 and earlier.
💻 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.
Likely Case
Attackers with low privileges could steal session tokens from other users, potentially escalating privileges or accessing unauthorized data.
If Mitigated
With proper input validation and output encoding, the vulnerability would be prevented despite the underlying code flaw.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated low-privileged access. The vulnerability is in form fields where user input isn't properly sanitized.
🛠️ 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 upgrade documentation. 3. Restart the AEM instance. 4. Verify the update was successful.
🔧 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 output encoding
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
- Implement web application firewall (WAF) rules to block XSS payloads
- Restrict low-privileged user access to content authoring interfaces
🔍 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. Test form fields with basic XSS payloads to confirm sanitization.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual content modifications by low-privileged users
- JavaScript payloads in request logs for form submissions
Network Indicators:
- Unexpected script tags in HTTP responses from AEM forms
SIEM Query:
source="aem-access.log" AND ("<script>" OR "javascript:" OR "onerror=" OR "onload=")