CVE-2024-26094 in Experience Manager
Summary
by MITRE • 03/18/2024
Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.19 and earlier are affected by a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could be abused by an attacker to inject malicious scripts into vulnerable form fields. Malicious JavaScript may be executed in a victim’s browser when they browse to the page containing the vulnerable field.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/15/2025
Adobe Experience Manager represents a comprehensive digital experience platform that serves as a cornerstone for enterprise web content management and digital asset handling. The platform's widespread adoption across organizations makes it an attractive target for cyber adversaries seeking to exploit vulnerabilities that could compromise large-scale digital ecosystems. This particular vulnerability resides within the form handling mechanisms of AEM's content management capabilities, where user inputs are processed and stored for later retrieval. The stored XSS vulnerability specifically targets the way the platform handles form field data, creating a persistent security weakness that can be leveraged by attackers to inject malicious JavaScript code into the system's database.
The technical flaw manifests in the insufficient sanitization and validation of user inputs within form fields that are subsequently stored and rendered back to users. When an attacker submits malicious script code through a vulnerable form field, the platform fails to properly escape or filter the input before storing it in the database. This allows the malicious payload to persist within the application's data store, creating a stored XSS vector that remains active until the malicious content is explicitly removed. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it operates at the application layer where user-generated content is processed and displayed, making it difficult to distinguish between legitimate and malicious inputs. The flaw affects all versions of Adobe Experience Manager 6.5.19 and earlier, indicating a long-standing issue within the platform's input handling mechanisms that has not been adequately addressed through previous updates.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script execution, as it can enable attackers to perform a wide range of malicious activities through compromised user sessions. When victims browse to pages containing the stored malicious content, their browsers execute the injected JavaScript code, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, data exfiltration, or redirection to malicious websites. The persistent nature of stored XSS means that the attack can affect multiple users over extended periods, as the malicious code remains embedded in the platform's data until manually removed. This vulnerability undermines the trust model of the digital experience platform, as legitimate users may unknowingly interact with malicious content that was injected by an attacker. Organizations relying on AEM for customer-facing applications, employee portals, or content management systems face significant risk of reputational damage, regulatory compliance violations, and potential financial losses due to successful exploitation attempts.
Organizations should immediately implement comprehensive mitigation strategies to address this vulnerability, beginning with urgent patching of affected AEM instances to the latest available versions. The remediation process should include thorough input validation and output encoding mechanisms to prevent malicious script injection, along with regular security assessments of form handling components. Implementation of web application firewalls and content security policies can provide additional layers of protection against exploitation attempts. Security teams should conduct comprehensive vulnerability scanning and penetration testing to identify all potentially affected form fields and data entry points within their AEM implementations. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which specifically addresses cross-site scripting flaws, and represents a clear violation of the principle of least privilege and input sanitization that forms the foundation of secure web application development practices. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving malicious code injection and session manipulation, demonstrating how initial access through form-based attacks can escalate into broader system compromise. Organizations should also establish incident response procedures specifically designed to handle XSS-related security events and maintain detailed audit trails of form data modifications to detect unauthorized injection attempts.