CVE-2025-46989 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 • 06/16/2025
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 critical component in organizational digital infrastructure, handling sensitive data through user interaction forms and content management interfaces. This vulnerability affects versions 6.5.22 and earlier, indicating a long-standing issue that has persisted across multiple releases within the 6.5.x series.
The stored cross-site scripting vulnerability resides in the form handling mechanisms of Adobe Experience Manager, specifically within how the system processes and stores user input submitted through web forms. When users submit data through vulnerable form fields, the system fails to adequately sanitize or encode the input before storing it in the database or content repository. This allows malicious actors with low privilege access to inject malicious javascript code directly into form fields that are subsequently rendered to other users. The vulnerability operates as a classic stored XSS attack where the malicious payload is permanently stored and executed during subsequent page views.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script execution, as it provides attackers with the ability to manipulate user sessions, steal authentication tokens, and potentially escalate privileges within the application. Low privilege attackers can exploit this weakness to compromise other users who interact with the affected form fields, creating a vector for session hijacking and data exfiltration. The vulnerability affects the integrity and confidentiality of user data, potentially exposing sensitive information through browser-based attacks that bypass traditional network security controls.
From a cybersecurity perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 which identifies cross-site scripting flaws in web applications, and represents a significant risk to the availability and integrity of digital services. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this as a technique for code injection and privilege escalation through web application vulnerabilities, enabling adversaries to establish persistent access to user sessions and potentially gain deeper system access. Organizations using Adobe Experience Manager must consider this vulnerability as part of their broader security posture assessment, particularly in environments where user-generated content and form submissions are prevalent.
Mitigation strategies should include immediate patching of affected Adobe Experience Manager installations to version 6.5.23 or later, which contains the necessary security fixes. Additionally, organizations should implement input validation and output encoding mechanisms to prevent malicious code injection, deploy web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious requests, and establish monitoring procedures to identify potential exploitation attempts. Regular security assessments and penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other web applications within the organization's infrastructure.