CVE-2025-43787 Overview
CVE-2025-43787 is a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Liferay Portal and Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP). The flaw resides in the organization site names field, which fails to sanitize or escape user-supplied input before rendering. A remote authenticated attacker with permission to create or modify organizations can inject JavaScript that executes in the browsers of other users who view the affected content.
The issue is tracked as CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation.
Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers can persist malicious JavaScript in organization site names, hijacking sessions and performing actions in the security context of administrators or other portal users.
Affected Products
- Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.132
- Liferay DXP 2024.Q1.1 through 2024.Q1.20, 2024.Q2.0 through 2024.Q2.13, 2024.Q3.0 through 2024.Q3.13, 2024.Q4.0 through 2024.Q4.7
- Liferay DXP 2025.Q1.0 through 2025.Q1.17, 2025.Q2.0 through 2025.Q2.12, and 2025.Q3.0
Discovery Timeline
- 2025-09-12 - CVE-2025-43787 published to NVD
- 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2025-43787
Vulnerability Analysis
The vulnerability allows an authenticated user to store JavaScript payloads within the organization site name field. When another user renders any page or administrative view that displays that organization name, the browser interprets the injected script rather than treating it as text. Because the payload is persisted server-side, exploitation does not require a phishing link or crafted request from the victim.
The impact scales with the privileges of the viewing user. Administrators or site owners accessing organization management pages become high-value targets. Session cookies, cross-site request forgery (CSRF) tokens, and privileged administrative actions are all reachable from the injected script context.
Exploitation requires low privileges but user interaction from a victim, since the payload only fires when a user visits a page rendering the tainted organization name.
Root Cause
The root cause is missing output encoding on the organization site name property. Liferay stores the value verbatim and emits it into the HTML response without HTML entity escaping or contextual encoding. Any characters with syntactic meaning in HTML, such as <, >, and ", break out of the intended text context and enter script or attribute contexts.
Attack Vector
An attacker authenticates to the portal with an account that has permission to create or edit an organization. The attacker sets the organization site name to a payload containing an HTML tag with an event handler or a <script> element. When any user with visibility into that organization loads a page containing the name, the payload executes under the victim's session.
The vulnerability manifests when Liferay renders organization site names in administrative panels, breadcrumbs, and site listings. See the Liferay CVE-2025-43787 advisory for vendor-supplied technical details.
Detection Methods for CVE-2025-43787
Indicators of Compromise
- Organization site name fields containing HTML tags, <script> elements, or JavaScript event handlers such as onerror, onload, or onmouseover
- Unexpected outbound requests from administrator browsers to attacker-controlled hosts shortly after visiting organization management pages
- Audit log entries showing organization creation or updates by low-privilege accounts followed by administrator session activity anomalies
Detection Strategies
- Review the Liferay database Organization_ table (and equivalent site name columns) for entries containing angle brackets, quotes, or JavaScript keywords
- Deploy Content Security Policy (CSP) reporting to capture inline script violations originating from Liferay-rendered pages
- Correlate web application firewall (WAF) logs for POST requests to organization administration endpoints containing script-like payloads
Monitoring Recommendations
- Monitor administrative endpoints such as /group/control_panel and organization edit APIs for anomalous request bodies
- Alert on new or modified organizations created by accounts that do not typically perform administrative tasks
- Track browser telemetry from administrator workstations for unexpected script execution or credential-access behavior when viewing portal pages
How to Mitigate CVE-2025-43787
Immediate Actions Required
- Apply the Liferay security patches referenced in the vendor advisory for the relevant Portal or DXP branch
- Audit all existing organizations for site names containing HTML or JavaScript syntax and sanitize any tainted entries
- Restrict organization creation and edit permissions to trusted roles until patches are deployed
Patch Information
Liferay has published fixes covering Liferay Portal 7.4 and the affected DXP quarterly releases spanning 2024.Q1 through 2025.Q3. Refer to the Liferay known vulnerabilities portal for exact fix pack identifiers and upgrade guidance for each supported branch.
Workarounds
- Enforce a strict Content Security Policy that disallows inline scripts and untrusted script sources to reduce exploit impact
- Temporarily revoke the organization management permission from non-administrative roles until the environment is patched
- Configure a WAF rule to block requests to organization administration endpoints containing <, >, or javascript: sequences in the name parameter
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
