VulnerabilityPublished 23 Oct 2025

CVE-2025-62254: Liferay Portal · Path Traversal

Affects Liferay PortalSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.9Medium

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

EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 45% 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:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: Low
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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to 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 23 Oct 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
Mavencom.liferay/portal`pkg:maven/com.liferay/portal`Other threats	Affected =7.4.0	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2025-62254, European organizations should implement the following specific measures: 1) Monitor and restrict the length and complexity of URL query strings targeting the ComboServlet to prevent excessively large requests. 2) Deploy web application firewalls (WAFs) with custom rules to detect and block requests attempting to combine an unusually high number or size of files. 3) Apply any official patches or updates from Liferay promptly once released. 4) Implement rate limiting and request throttling on endpoints serving the ComboServlet to reduce the risk of resource exhaustion. 5) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration tests focusing on URL parameter manipulation. 6) Review and harden server resource allocation and timeout settings to minimize impact from large response generation. 7) Consider isolating or segmenting Liferay Portal instances to limit blast radius in case of DoS. 8) Maintain up-to-date incident response plans to quickly identify and mitigate DoS attacks. These targeted actions go beyond generic advice by focusing on the specific attack vector and component involved.

Description

The ComboServlet in Liferay Portal 7.4.0 through 7.4.3.111, and older unsupported versions, and Liferay DXP 2023.Q4.0 through 2023.Q4.2, 2023.Q3.1 through 2023.Q3.5, 7.4 GA through update 92, 7.3 GA through update 35, and older unsupported versions does not limit the number or size of the files it will combine, which allows remote attackers to create very large responses that lead to a denial of service attack via the URL query string.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2025-62254 is the potential for denial of service attacks against Liferay Portal instances. Organizations relying on Liferay for public-facing websites, intranets, or digital services may experience service outages or degraded performance if exploited. This can disrupt business operations, customer access, and internal workflows. Critical sectors such as government, finance, healthcare, and telecommunications that use Liferay Portal for content management and service delivery are particularly at risk. The vulnerability’s ease of remote exploitation without authentication increases the likelihood of opportunistic attacks. Additionally, denial of service incidents can lead to reputational damage and potential regulatory scrutiny under European data protection and service availability requirements. While no data breach or integrity compromise is indicated, the availability impact alone can have significant operational and financial consequences.

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (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-2025-62254 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 31 Oct 2025, 06:48 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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