CVE-2025-46840VulnerabilityPublished 10 Jun 2025Updated 26 Feb 2026

CVE-2025-46840: Adobe Experience Manager · Improper Authorization

Affects Adobe Experience ManagerSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

8.7High

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 38% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Availability: None

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

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, 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: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: Required: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a user to take some action before the vulnerability can be exploited.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 10 Jun 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 2026-10-26.

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 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
Adobe Adobe Experience Manager	Affected =0 <=6.5.22	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

Organizations should immediately inventory their Adobe Experience Manager deployments to identify affected versions (6.5.22 and earlier). Until an official patch is released, implement compensating controls such as: 1) Restrict access to AEM administrative interfaces to trusted networks and users only. 2) Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users with access to AEM to reduce the risk of session hijacking. 3) Monitor logs for unusual privilege escalation attempts or session anomalies. 4) Educate users on phishing and social engineering risks to reduce the likelihood of user interaction exploitation. 5) Apply strict role-based access controls (RBAC) to minimize privileges granted to users and services. 6) Consider deploying web application firewalls (WAF) with custom rules to detect and block suspicious AEM requests. 7) Prepare for rapid patch deployment once Adobe releases an official fix. 8) Conduct penetration testing focused on authorization controls within AEM to identify any additional weaknesses. These targeted measures go beyond generic advice by focusing on access restriction, user behavior, and monitoring tailored to the nature of this vulnerability.

Description

Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.5.22 and earlier are affected by an Improper Authorization vulnerability that could result in Privilege escalation. A low privileged attacker could leverage this vulnerability to bypass security measures and gain unauthorized access. Exploitation of this issue requires user interaction. A successful attacker can abuse this to achieve session takeover, increasing the confidentiality and integrity impact as high.

Impact

The vulnerability poses a serious risk to organizations relying on Adobe Experience Manager for content and digital experience management. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized privilege escalation, allowing attackers to access sensitive content, modify configurations, or impersonate legitimate users via session takeover. This can result in data breaches, unauthorized data manipulation, and potential disruption of business operations reliant on AEM. The confidentiality and integrity of critical business and customer data are at high risk. Given AEM's deployment in sectors such as finance, healthcare, government, and retail, the impact could extend to regulatory non-compliance, reputational damage, and financial losses. The requirement for user interaction somewhat limits automated exploitation but does not eliminate risk, especially in environments with social engineering susceptibility. The absence of known exploits currently provides a window for proactive defense, but the high CVSS score underscores the urgency of addressing this vulnerability.

CWE-285Improper Authorization (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighOWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product does not perform or incorrectly performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design
Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that you perform access control checks related to your business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that you apply to more generic resources such as files, connections, processes, memory, and database records.
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.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.3.8 (opens in a new tab)
V13.4.2 (opens in a new tab)
V7.2.2 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Accessing Functionality Not Properly Constrained by ACLs (opens in a new tab)
Cross Zone Scripting (opens in a new tab)
Directory Indexing (opens in a new tab)
Subverting Environment Variable Values (opens in a new tab)
Using Malicious Files (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

helpx.adobe.com/security/products/experience-manager/apsb25-48.html (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 02:31 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-285

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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