CVE-2025-46906 Overview
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) versions 6.5.22 and earlier contain a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability [CWE-79]. A low-privileged attacker can inject malicious JavaScript into vulnerable form fields. When a victim browses to a page containing the injected field, the payload executes in their browser session. The flaw affects both on-premises AEM deployments and AEM Cloud Service instances. Adobe addressed the issue in Security Advisory APSB25-48.
Critical Impact
Attackers with low-privileged accounts can persist JavaScript payloads in AEM form fields, executing arbitrary script in the browsers of authenticated visitors and enabling session theft, credential harvesting, or unauthorized actions on behalf of the victim.
Affected Products
- Adobe Experience Manager 6.5.22 and earlier (on-premises)
- Adobe Experience Manager Cloud Service
- AEM Forms components exposing user-editable fields
Discovery Timeline
- 2025-06-10 - CVE-2025-46906 published to NVD
- 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
Technical Details for CVE-2025-46906
Vulnerability Analysis
The vulnerability is a stored XSS flaw in Adobe Experience Manager form handling. AEM stores user-supplied input from form fields without adequate sanitization or output encoding. When rendered back to a browser, the persisted content is interpreted as active HTML and JavaScript rather than inert data.
Exploitation requires an attacker to hold a low-privileged AEM account with permission to submit or edit form field content. Victim interaction is required: a legitimate user must load the affected page for the stored payload to fire. Because the scope changes across a security boundary, script executes in the context of the AEM origin trusted by the victim.
Successful exploitation enables session hijacking, targeted phishing overlays inside the AEM interface, and unauthorized actions performed as the victim within AEM authoring or delivery contexts.
Root Cause
The root cause is improper neutralization of input during web page generation [CWE-79]. AEM accepts attacker-controlled markup in form field values and later emits that value into the DOM without contextual output encoding. HTML control characters such as <, >, and quote delimiters survive the render pipeline and allow <script> tags or event handler attributes to execute.
Attack Vector
The attack vector is network-based over standard HTTP or HTTPS to the AEM instance. An authenticated attacker submits a crafted payload to a vulnerable form field. The payload persists in the AEM content repository. When any user with view access loads the containing page, the browser parses and executes the stored script.
See the Adobe Security Advisory APSB25-48 for vendor-supplied technical details.
Detection Methods for CVE-2025-46906
Indicators of Compromise
- Form field values in the AEM JCR repository containing <script>, javascript:, or DOM event handler attributes such as onerror= and onload=.
- Unexpected outbound requests from author or publish instances to attacker-controlled domains following page views.
- Session token exfiltration patterns in web server or CDN logs correlated with AEM form-hosting pages.
Detection Strategies
- Review AEM audit logs for form submissions and page property edits by low-privileged users containing HTML metacharacters.
- Deploy content inspection rules on the web tier to flag persisted content matching XSS payload signatures.
- Perform authenticated scanning of AEM pages with a DAST tool configured to identify reflected and stored script execution.
Monitoring Recommendations
- Alert on anomalous JavaScript execution originating from AEM-delivered pages using browser telemetry or a Content Security Policy report endpoint.
- Monitor authentication events for AEM authoring accounts, particularly session activity following form-content modifications.
- Ingest AEM dispatcher and access logs into a centralized analytics platform to correlate injection attempts with downstream victim traffic.
How to Mitigate CVE-2025-46906
Immediate Actions Required
- Apply the Adobe security update referenced in APSB25-48 to all AEM 6.5 instances.
- Verify AEM Cloud Service instances are running a build that includes the fix.
- Audit AEM user roles and remove unnecessary form-authoring privileges from low-trust accounts.
Patch Information
Adobe released fixed builds addressing this vulnerability in Security Advisory APSB25-48. Upgrade Adobe Experience Manager to a version later than 6.5.22 or apply the corresponding AEM Service Pack. AEM Cloud Service customers should confirm their environment is running a release that supersedes the affected build.
Workarounds
- Restrict form authoring permissions to trusted users until patching is complete.
- Enforce a strict Content Security Policy that disallows inline script execution on AEM-delivered pages.
- Configure the AEM Dispatcher and any upstream web application firewall to filter HTML metacharacters submitted to form endpoints.
# Example Content Security Policy header to reduce XSS impact
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; frame-ancestors 'self'
Disclaimer: This content was generated using AI. While we strive for accuracy, please verify critical information with official sources.
