VulnerabilityPublished 9 Sep 2025

CVE-2025-43786: Liferay Portal · XSS or 'Cross-site Scripting'

Affects Liferay PortalSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.9Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 23% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: Low
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: None
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed “remotely exploitable” and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 9 Sep 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Liferay Portal	Affected =7.4.0	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

European organizations should implement the following specific mitigation measures: 1) Monitor Liferay's official security advisories closely and apply patches or updates as soon as they become available to address CVE-2025-43786. 2) In the interim, restrict access to Liferay Portal management interfaces and APIs to trusted IP ranges using network-level controls such as firewalls or VPNs to limit exposure to potential attackers. 3) Employ Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block anomalous request patterns indicative of timing enumeration attacks targeting ERCs. 4) Conduct thorough input validation and output encoding reviews in custom Liferay modules or extensions to ensure no additional XSS or timing side channels exist. 5) Implement logging and alerting on unusual access patterns or repeated requests that may indicate enumeration attempts. 6) Educate security teams and developers on the risks of timing attacks and the importance of secure coding practices in web page generation. 7) Consider deploying runtime application self-protection (RASP) solutions that can detect and block exploitation attempts in real time. These measures, combined with timely patching, will reduce the risk of exploitation and limit the attack surface.

Description

Enumeration of ERC from object entry in Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.128, and Liferay DXP 2024.Q3.0 through 2024.Q3.1, 2024.Q2.0 through 2024.Q2.13, 2024.Q1.1 through 2024.Q1.12, 2023.Q4.0 and 7.4 GA through update 92 allow attackers to determine existent ERC in the application by exploit the time response.

Impact

For European organizations using Liferay Portal or Liferay DXP, this vulnerability poses a risk primarily in terms of information disclosure. Attackers can remotely enumerate valid ERCs, which may reveal sensitive internal identifiers or resource mappings. While this does not directly lead to code execution or data modification, it can facilitate targeted attacks such as more precise phishing, privilege escalation attempts, or further exploitation of other vulnerabilities by providing attackers with detailed knowledge of the system's structure. Given that Liferay Portal is widely used by enterprises, government agencies, and public sector organizations across Europe for content management and collaboration, the exposure of such internal information could undermine confidentiality and trust. The lack of required authentication or user interaction increases the risk profile, as attackers can scan and enumerate ERCs without needing credentials or user involvement. However, the limited impact on integrity and availability and the absence of known active exploits reduce the immediate criticality. Still, the vulnerability should be addressed promptly to prevent attackers from leveraging this reconnaissance capability in multi-stage attacks.

CWE-79Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #1OWASP Top 10 A05:2025: Injection (opens in a new tab)
The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
Architecture and Design · Libraries or Frameworks
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation · Architecture and Design
Understand the context in which your data will be used and the encoding that will be expected. This is especially important when transmitting data between different components, or when generating outputs that can contain multiple encodings at the same time, such as web pages or multi-part mail messages.
Architecture and Design · Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
Understand all the potential areas where untrusted inputs can enter your software: parameters or arguments, cookies, anything read from the network, environment variables, reverse DNS lookups, query results, request headers, URL components, e-mail, files, filenames, databases, and any external systems that provide…
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Cross Site Scripting Prevention (opens in a new tab)
DOM based XSS Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Injection Prevention (opens in a new tab)
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
Deserialization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V5.3.3 (opens in a new tab)
V1.5.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch (opens in a new tab)
DOM-Based XSS (opens in a new tab)
Reflected XSS (opens in a new tab)
Stored XSS (opens in a new tab)
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

liferay.dev/portal/security/known-vulnerabilities/-/asset_publisher/jekt/content/CVE-2025-43786 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 17 Sep 2025, 01:00 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-79

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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