CVE-2025-46895 in Experience Manager
Summary
by MITRE • 06/11/2025
Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.22 and earlier are affected by a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability that could be abused by a low privileged 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 • 06/11/2025
Adobe Experience Manager represents a comprehensive content management platform widely deployed across enterprise environments for digital experience management and web content delivery. The platform serves as a central hub for creating, managing, and publishing digital assets while providing robust features for user engagement and personalized content delivery. Organizations rely heavily on AEM for their digital presence, making it a prime target for cyber adversaries seeking to exploit vulnerabilities within their content management infrastructure. The platform's extensive feature set includes form handling capabilities that allow content creators to collect user input through various form fields, making these components critical attack surfaces within the overall security posture.
The stored cross-site scripting vulnerability in Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.22 and earlier stems from inadequate input validation and output encoding mechanisms within the form processing components. This flaw specifically affects how the system handles user-supplied data submitted through form fields, failing to properly sanitize or escape potentially malicious script content before storing and rendering it within web pages. The vulnerability manifests when an attacker with low privileged access creates or modifies form fields containing malicious javascript payloads that persist in the system's database. These stored scripts are subsequently executed whenever legitimate users view pages containing the vulnerable form fields, creating a persistent threat vector that can compromise user sessions and execute unauthorized actions.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script execution, representing a significant threat to enterprise security and user privacy. Attackers can leverage this weakness to steal session cookies, perform unauthorized actions on behalf of users, redirect victims to malicious sites, or harvest sensitive information submitted through compromised forms. The low privilege requirement for exploitation makes this vulnerability particularly dangerous as it can be exploited by insiders or compromised low-level accounts, potentially escalating to higher privileges through additional attack vectors. The persistent nature of stored XSS means that once an attacker successfully injects malicious code, the payload continues to execute against all users who encounter the vulnerable content until the malicious script is removed from the system.
Security practitioners should implement comprehensive mitigation strategies addressing both immediate remediation and long-term defensive measures. The primary recommendation involves upgrading to Adobe Experience Manager versions that contain patches addressing this specific vulnerability, as Adobe typically releases security updates to resolve known exploits. Organizations must also implement strict input validation controls and output encoding mechanisms within their form processing workflows, ensuring all user-supplied data undergoes proper sanitization before being stored or rendered. Additionally, implementing content security policies and regular security scanning of form fields can help detect and prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in other components of the platform. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which specifically addresses cross-site scripting flaws, and represents a technique commonly categorized under ATT&CK tactic TA0001 Initial Access with techniques including T1531 Account Access Removal and T1566 Phishing. The attack surface for such vulnerabilities often includes web application firewalls and input validation systems that should be configured to detect and block malicious payloads attempting to exploit these persistent XSS flaws.