CVE-2025-43812: Liferay DXP XSS Vulnerability

CVE-2025-43812 Overview

CVE-2025-43812 is a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting Liferay Portal and Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP). The flaw resides in the web content template component, where the Name text field of a web content structure fails to sanitize user-supplied input. Authenticated users with permission to create or edit web content structures can inject arbitrary HTML or JavaScript payloads that execute in the browsers of other users viewing affected pages. The issue is tracked under CWE-79 (Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation).

Critical Impact
Authenticated attackers can inject persistent JavaScript that executes in the sessions of administrators and other portal users, enabling session theft, forced actions, and defacement of Liferay-hosted content.

Affected Products

Liferay Portal 7.4.3.4 through 7.4.3.111
Liferay DXP 2023.Q4.0 through 2023.Q4.4, and 2023.Q3.1 through 2023.Q3.8
Liferay DXP 7.4 GA through update 92

Discovery Timeline

2025-09-29 - CVE-2025-43812 published to the National Vulnerability Database
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-43812

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a stored XSS flaw in Liferay's web content template subsystem. When a user creates or edits a web content structure, the Name field is persisted and later rendered without sufficient output encoding. An attacker who can author or modify a web content structure can embed HTML tags or <script> blocks that execute whenever the structure name is rendered in the portal UI.

Because the payload is stored server-side, it triggers on every subsequent view, expanding the blast radius beyond a single victim session. Exploitation requires authentication and some user interaction from the target, such as browsing a page that lists or references the affected structure. Impact is scoped to confidentiality and integrity of data accessible from the victim's browser context.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper neutralization of input in the web content structure Name field. The rendering code path emits the stored value into HTML without applying context-appropriate encoding, allowing attacker-controlled markup to be interpreted by the browser rather than treated as literal text.

Attack Vector

An authenticated user with permission to create or edit web content structures submits a crafted payload in the Name field. When another user, typically an administrator navigating the web content administration interface, loads a view that renders the structure name, the injected script executes under the origin of the Liferay portal.

A typical payload would consist of an HTML event handler or script tag embedded inside the Name value. On execution, the attacker can exfiltrate session cookies (where not marked HttpOnly), perform actions on behalf of the victim through same-origin requests, or rewrite portions of the DOM to phish credentials. No verified public exploit or proof-of-concept has been published for CVE-2025-43812 at the time of writing.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-43812

Indicators of Compromise

Web content structure Name fields containing HTML tags, <script>, <img onerror=, javascript: URIs, or other markup atypical of a display name.
Unexpected outbound requests from administrator browsers to external hosts shortly after loading Liferay web content administration pages.
Modifications to web content structures performed by low-privileged accounts that do not normally author content.

Detection Strategies

Query the Liferay database tables backing web content structures (for example, DDMStructure) for Name values containing <, >, script, onerror, or onload substrings.
Enable Content Security Policy (CSP) reporting on the Liferay portal and monitor violation reports for inline script executions originating from administration pages.
Review Liferay audit logs for structure create and update events by non-content authors and correlate them with subsequent administrator sessions.

Monitoring Recommendations

Forward Liferay application logs and web server access logs to a centralized SIEM or data lake and alert on structure modification events combined with anomalous payload characters.
Monitor administrator accounts for anomalous session activity, such as unexpected privileged actions immediately following visits to web content administration pages.
Track user-agent and geolocation deltas on administrator sessions to identify potential session hijacking following XSS execution.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-43812

Immediate Actions Required

Upgrade Liferay Portal to a version beyond 7.4.3.111 and Liferay DXP to a release containing the fix as listed in the Liferay security advisory for CVE-2025-43812.
Audit existing web content structures for suspicious Name values and remove or sanitize any entries containing HTML or scripting syntax.
Restrict web content structure creation and edit permissions to trusted content authors only.

Patch Information

Liferay has published a fix for CVE-2025-43812. Refer to the Liferay CVE-2025-43812 advisory for the specific patched update levels for Liferay Portal 7.4 and Liferay DXP 7.4 / 2023.Q3 / 2023.Q4 quarterly releases. Apply the vendor-supplied update through the standard Liferay patching mechanism.

Workarounds

Remove the Update Structure and Add Structure permissions from user roles that do not require them, reducing the population of accounts able to inject payloads.
Deploy a web application firewall (WAF) rule that rejects requests to structure creation and update endpoints when the Name parameter contains <, >, or common XSS keywords.
Enforce a strict Content Security Policy on Liferay administrative pages to block inline script execution.

bash

# Example WAF rule fragment (ModSecurity) to block HTML in structure Name field
SecRule ARGS:name "@rx <[a-z!/?]" \
  "id:1004381,phase:2,deny,status:400,\
   msg:'Potential XSS in Liferay web content structure Name (CVE-2025-43812)',\
   tag:'CVE-2025-43812'"