CVE-2025-43746: Liferay Digital Experience Platform XSS

CVE-2025-43746 Overview

CVE-2025-43746 is a reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting Liferay Portal and Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP). The flaw resides in the Dynamic Data Mapping (DDM) portlet, where the _com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_portletNamespace and _com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_namespace request parameters are reflected without adequate output encoding. A remote, authenticated attacker can inject JavaScript that executes in the browser of any user who follows a crafted URL. The vulnerability is tracked under CWE-79.

Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers can execute arbitrary JavaScript in victim browsers, enabling session hijacking, credential theft, and unauthorized actions within the Liferay portal context.

Affected Products

Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.132 and 7.4 GA through update 92
Liferay DXP 2024.Q1.1–2024.Q1.18, 2024.Q2.0–2024.Q2.13, 2024.Q3.0–2024.Q3.13, 2024.Q4.0–2024.Q4.7
Liferay DXP 2025.Q1.0–2025.Q1.14 and 2025.Q2.0–2025.Q2.2

Discovery Timeline

2025-08-20 - CVE-2025-43746 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-43746

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a reflected XSS in the Dynamic Data Mapping web portlet shipped with Liferay Portal and DXP. When the DDM portlet processes requests, it echoes the values of the portletNamespace and namespace parameters back into the rendered HTML response. Because these values are not properly sanitized or contextually encoded, attacker-supplied markup and scripts execute within the victim's authenticated session.

Exploitation requires an authenticated session, which limits opportunistic mass exploitation but is realistic in multi-tenant portals, extranets, and customer-facing DXP deployments where low-privilege accounts are common. Successful attacks can lead to session token theft, forced actions performed as the victim, phishing overlays inside a trusted domain, and pivoting toward administrative functions if a privileged user is targeted.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing or insufficient output encoding of user-controlled portlet namespace parameters before they are written into HTML or JavaScript response contexts. The DDM portlet trusts the incoming _com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_portletNamespace and _com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_namespace values, which are reflected verbatim, meeting the classic definition of CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation.

Attack Vector

An attacker crafts a URL to a vulnerable Liferay endpoint containing malicious JavaScript in the affected portletNamespace or namespace parameter. The attacker then convinces an authenticated user, often through phishing or an internal chat message, to click the link. When the target loads the URL, the injected payload executes in their browser under the Liferay origin and inherits their session cookies and permissions.

No verified proof-of-concept exploit code is published for CVE-2025-43746. Refer to the Liferay Security Advisory CVE-2025-43746 for vendor guidance.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-43746

Indicators of Compromise

Web server or reverse proxy access logs showing requests to DDM portlet URLs containing <script>, javascript:, onerror=, or URL-encoded equivalents (%3Cscript%3E) in the portletNamespace or namespace parameters.
Referrer headers pointing to external domains preceding DDM portlet requests from authenticated user sessions.
Unexpected outbound requests from user browsers to attacker-controlled hosts shortly after visiting a Liferay URL.

Detection Strategies

Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule that inspects DDM portlet parameters for HTML metacharacters and common XSS payload patterns.
Enable and centralize Liferay access logs, then hunt for the parameter names _com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_portletNamespace and _com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_namespace containing suspicious payloads.
Correlate authenticated session activity with anomalous DOM behavior or Content Security Policy (CSP) violation reports.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable browser CSP report-only mode to surface script injection attempts against portal users.
Monitor for session token reuse from unexpected IP addresses following DDM portlet access.
Track sudden spikes in outbound POST requests from portal users to previously unseen destinations.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-43746

Immediate Actions Required

Upgrade to a fixed Liferay Portal or DXP release as documented in the Liferay Security Advisory CVE-2025-43746.
Inventory all Liferay Portal 7.4 and DXP instances and confirm their exact update level against the affected version ranges.
Enforce least-privilege on portal accounts to reduce the impact of a targeted XSS against high-value users.

Patch Information

Liferay has published guidance for this issue in its official security advisory. Administrators should apply the vendor-supplied fix package appropriate for their branch (Portal 7.4, DXP 2024.Qx, or DXP 2025.Qx) and validate the DDM portlet no longer reflects unsanitized portletNamespace or namespace parameter values.

Workarounds

Deploy WAF signatures that block DDM portlet requests containing HTML tags, event handlers, or JavaScript URI schemes in namespace parameters.
Implement a strict Content Security Policy that disallows inline scripts and restricts script sources to trusted origins.
Restrict access to the DDM portlet endpoints to trusted internal networks where the business use case permits.

bash

# Example NGINX rule to block suspicious DDM namespace parameters
if ($args ~* "_com_liferay_dynamic_data_mapping_web_portlet_DDMPortlet_(portletN|n)amespace=[^&]*(<|%3C|javascript:|onerror=)") {
    return 403;
}