CVE-2025-62257: Liferay DXP Auth Bypass Vulnerability

CVE-2025-62257 Overview

CVE-2025-62257 is a password enumeration vulnerability affecting Liferay Portal and Liferay Digital Experience Platform (DXP). The flaw allows remote attackers to determine a user's password through brute force attacks, even when account lockout protections are enabled. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-307: Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts.

Affected versions include Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.119 and Liferay DXP releases spanning 2023.Q3, 2023.Q4, 2024.Q1, and 7.4 GA through update 92. Older unsupported versions are also affected.

Critical Impact
Remote unauthenticated attackers can determine valid user passwords through brute force, bypassing account lockout controls that would normally block such attempts.

Affected Products

Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.119 (and older unsupported versions)
Liferay DXP 2024.Q1.1 through 2024.Q1.5, 2023.Q4.0 through 2023.Q4.10, 2023.Q3.1 through 2023.Q3.10
Liferay DXP 7.4 GA through update 92 (and older unsupported versions)

Discovery Timeline

2025-10-30 - CVE CVE-2025-62257 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-62257

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in how Liferay Portal and DXP enforce authentication attempt restrictions. Although the platform supports an account lockout mechanism to defend against brute force attacks, an implementation flaw permits attackers to continue probing credentials without triggering the lockout consistently. This enables password enumeration against valid user accounts over the network.

Because the attack requires no authentication and no user interaction, an attacker can automate credential guessing at scale. The impact is limited to confidentiality of authentication credentials, but successful discovery of a password grants full access to that user's account, including any privileged application roles.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper restriction of excessive authentication attempts [CWE-307]. The lockout logic fails to fully constrain repeated login attempts under specific conditions, letting attackers extract password information from the authentication response behavior.

Attack Vector

An attacker sends a large volume of authentication requests to the Liferay login endpoint targeting known usernames. The lockout control does not reliably halt the enumeration, allowing the attacker to iterate through candidate passwords until the correct value is identified. The attack is remote, unauthenticated, and network-based.

See the Liferay security advisory for further technical detail. No public proof-of-concept exploit code is available.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-62257

Indicators of Compromise

High volume of failed authentication attempts against the Liferay login endpoint from a single source or distributed sources
Successful logins immediately preceded by many failed attempts against the same account
Authentication events that reference the same username with rapidly changing password values

Detection Strategies

Aggregate Liferay authentication logs and alert on failed login rates that exceed baseline thresholds per account and per source IP
Correlate successful authentications with preceding failure counts to identify likely brute force success
Baseline normal login geography and user-agent patterns; flag deviations targeting privileged accounts

Monitoring Recommendations

Forward Liferay Portal and DXP access logs, along with reverse proxy or web application firewall (WAF) logs, to a centralized SIEM
Enable detailed audit logging for the Login and LoginPostAction portal events
Monitor administrative and content author accounts for anomalous authentication patterns

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-62257

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the security update published by Liferay for Portal and DXP as referenced in the vendor advisory
Place the Liferay login endpoint behind a WAF or reverse proxy that enforces rate limiting per source IP and per username
Reset passwords for any account showing anomalous authentication patterns and require strong, unique credentials

Patch Information

Liferay has published guidance and fixes through its known vulnerabilities portal. Refer to the Liferay CVE-2025-62257 Advisory for the specific patch versions and upgrade instructions covering Portal 7.4 and DXP 2023.Q3, 2023.Q4, 2024.Q1, and 7.4 update streams.

Workarounds

Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users so that a discovered password alone does not grant access
Configure aggressive rate limiting and CAPTCHA challenges at the network edge for the login endpoint
Restrict access to the Liferay administrative interface to trusted networks or VPN clients where feasible
Review and tighten Liferay account lockout properties, and monitor for lockout evasion patterns

bash

# Example nginx rate limit for the Liferay login endpoint
limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=liferay_login:10m rate=5r/m;

server {
    location /c/portal/login {
        limit_req zone=liferay_login burst=5 nodelay;
        proxy_pass http://liferay_backend;
    }
}