CVE-2025-43788 is a medium-severity vulnerability identified in Liferay Portal versions 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.124, Liferay DXP 2024.Q1.1 through 2024.Q1.12, and 7.4 update 81 through update 85. The vulnerability arises from a missing authorization check in the organization selector component of the Liferay Portal. Specifically, remote authenticated users can access the organization selector without proper permission validation, allowing them to retrieve a list of all organizations within the portal environment. This issue is classified under CWE-862 (Missing Authorization), indicating that the system fails to enforce proper access control on a sensitive resource. The CVSS v4.0 base score is 5.3 (medium), reflecting that the vulnerability can be exploited remotely over the network without user interaction, requires low privileges (authenticated user), and results in limited confidentiality impact (disclosure of organization names). There is no known exploitation in the wild at the time of publication, and no official patches have been linked yet. The vulnerability does not affect integrity or availability directly but exposes organizational structure information that could aid attackers in reconnaissance and subsequent targeted attacks.

For European organizations using affected versions of Liferay Portal or Liferay DXP, this vulnerability could lead to unauthorized disclosure of internal organizational information. While the direct impact is limited to information disclosure, the exposure of organization lists can facilitate further attacks such as social engineering, spear phishing, or privilege escalation attempts by providing attackers with valuable intelligence about the target environment. Organizations in sectors with stringent data protection requirements (e.g., finance, healthcare, government) may face compliance risks if sensitive organizational data is exposed. Additionally, knowledge of organizational structure can aid attackers in crafting more effective lateral movement strategies within compromised networks. Although the vulnerability requires authenticated access, many enterprises have large user bases with varying privilege levels, increasing the risk that an attacker could exploit a compromised or low-privileged account to gather this information. The medium severity rating suggests that while the vulnerability is not critical, it should be addressed promptly to reduce the attack surface and prevent information leakage that could be leveraged in multi-stage attacks.

European organizations should implement the following specific mitigation steps: 1) Immediately audit and restrict user permissions to ensure that only authorized personnel have access to the organization selector or related administrative functions within Liferay Portal. 2) Monitor and log access to organization-related data to detect unusual or unauthorized access patterns. 3) Apply the latest security updates and patches from Liferay as soon as they become available, even though no patches are currently linked, organizations should stay vigilant for vendor releases addressing this issue. 4) Employ network segmentation and access controls to limit the exposure of the Liferay Portal to trusted internal networks or VPN users only. 5) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focusing on authorization controls within the portal to identify and remediate similar access control weaknesses. 6) Educate users about the risks of credential compromise and enforce strong authentication mechanisms (e.g., multi-factor authentication) to reduce the likelihood of attacker access via stolen credentials.