CVE-2025-47019: Adobe Experience Manager XSS Vulnerability

CVE-2025-47019 Overview

CVE-2025-47019 is a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) versions 6.5.22 and earlier, including the AEM Cloud Service. A low-privileged attacker can inject malicious JavaScript into vulnerable form fields. The script executes in a victim's browser when they visit the page containing the affected field. The flaw is categorized under [CWE-79], improper neutralization of input during web page generation.

The vulnerability requires authentication and user interaction, and its scope is changed, meaning injected scripts can affect resources beyond the vulnerable component.

Critical Impact

Authenticated attackers can persist malicious JavaScript in AEM form fields, leading to session token theft, credential harvesting, and unauthorized actions performed in the context of administrators or content authors.

Affected Products

• Adobe Experience Manager 6.5.22 and earlier (on-premises)
• Adobe Experience Manager Cloud Service
• AEM form components handling untrusted input

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-06-10 - CVE-2025-47019 published to NVD
• 2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database
• Vendor advisory - Published in Adobe Security Advisory APSB25-48

Technical Details for CVE-2025-47019

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is a stored XSS flaw in AEM form field handling. Attacker-supplied input is persisted server-side without adequate output encoding or input sanitization. When another user renders the page containing the poisoned field, the browser parses the injected payload as JavaScript.

Because the payload is stored, exploitation does not require an attacker to trick users into visiting a crafted URL. Any user who legitimately browses the affected page becomes a target. The changed scope indicates that the injected script can interact with resources managed outside the vulnerable component, such as AEM administrative endpoints or authoring consoles.

Exploitation requires a low-privileged authenticated account with permission to submit content into the vulnerable form field. User interaction is required in the form of a victim navigating to the rendered page.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing or insufficient neutralization of HTML and JavaScript metacharacters in form field input before it is stored and later rendered. AEM's form components trust the persisted content and emit it into the response without contextual output encoding, allowing script content to reach the DOM.

Attack Vector

The attack vector is network-based and proceeds in three stages. First, the attacker authenticates to AEM with a low-privileged account. Second, the attacker submits a payload containing script content into a vulnerable form field, which AEM persists in the repository. Third, when an authenticated victim, typically an administrator or content author, renders the page hosting that field, the script executes with the victim's session context. Adobe has not published a public proof-of-concept exploit, and the vulnerability is not listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

Refer to Adobe Security Advisory APSB25-48 for vendor technical details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-47019

Indicators of Compromise

• Form field values in the AEM repository containing <script> tags, javascript: URIs, or event handler attributes such as onerror= and onload=.
• Unexpected outbound requests from author or publish nodes to attacker-controlled domains following page rendering.
• Session tokens or CSRF tokens appearing in web server access logs as query parameters.
• Anomalous content modifications submitted by low-privileged authors targeting form components.

Detection Strategies

• Query the JCR repository for stored content nodes containing HTML or JavaScript patterns in form-related properties.
• Inspect AEM request logs for POST requests to form endpoints containing encoded script payloads.
• Deploy content security policy (CSP) reporting to surface script executions from unexpected origins.
• Correlate authoring activity with subsequent script execution alerts in browser or endpoint telemetry.

Monitoring Recommendations

• Forward AEM request.log, error.log, and dispatcher logs to a central analytics platform for pattern analysis.
• Monitor administrator and author sessions for unexpected privileged actions that could indicate hijacked sessions.
• Alert on repository writes that introduce script tags or JavaScript event handlers into form component properties.

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-47019

Immediate Actions Required

• Apply the AEM security update referenced in Adobe Security Advisory APSB25-48 to all on-premises AEM 6.5 instances.
• Verify AEM Cloud Service instances have received the vendor-managed fix.
• Audit low-privileged author accounts for recent content submissions containing script-like input.
• Review form components for persisted payloads and remove any injected content before it renders to end users.

Patch Information

Adobe addressed the vulnerability in the AEM 6.5 Service Pack referenced in advisory APSB25-48. AEM Cloud Service customers receive the fix automatically through Adobe's managed release channel. Administrators of on-premises deployments should download and apply the update from the Adobe Software Distribution portal and validate installation with the AEM package manager.

Workarounds

• Restrict form authoring permissions to trusted users until the patch is deployed.
• Enforce a strict Content Security Policy on AEM publish instances to block inline script execution.
• Configure the AEM dispatcher to filter request payloads containing script metacharacters where feasible.
• Enable server-side output encoding using AEM's XSS API (org.apache.sling.xss.XSSAPI) in custom form components.

# Example dispatcher filter rule to block suspicious form submissions
/0100 { /type "deny" /method "POST" /url "*" /query "*<script*" }
/0101 { /type "deny" /method "POST" /url "*" /query "*javascript:*" }