CISA Warns Of Adobe Experience Manager Forms 0-Day Vulnerability Exploited In Attacks

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Published: 2025-10-16

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On this page

1. TL;DR for Executives
2. What We Know So Far
3. Likely Affected Components
4. Emergency Mitigations (60 minutes)
5. Detections: Splunk, KQL, Sigma, WAF rules
6. Incident Response Checklist
7. Hardening & Recovery Plan
8. Recommended Tools (Affiliate)
9. FAQ

TL;DR for Executives

• Risk: A 0-day in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms is being exploited in the wild. Public-facing AEM Forms endpoints can be abused for remote code execution or privilege abuse, leading to data theft and website takeover.
• Action now: Geo/IP restrict author/publish, disable vulnerable endpoints and form handlers not in use, deploy WAF virtual patches, and begin log review for suspicious POSTs and template uploads.
• Business impact: Customer PII exposure, e-signature workflows hijack, web defacement, and malware delivery via trusted site.

What We Know So Far

Threat actors are probing and exploiting AEM Forms request handlers and template processing paths exposed on the internet. While specific CVE fields may still be evolving, active exploitation means mitigate first, forensicate in parallel. Expect payloads embedded in multipart form uploads, template jars/zip, or crafted URLs that trigger server-side execution.

Likely Affected Components

• AEM Forms endpoints (author/publish) handling multipart form submissions.
• Servlets & Sling selectors with scriptable handling of uploaded templates or XDP/XFA content.
• OSGi bundles related to Forms Processing, Workflow, or Data Integration that process untrusted inputs.

Emergency Mitigations 

1. Restrict exposure: Place author behind VPN/ZTNA. For publish, enforce IP allow-lists for admin paths and disable any unused Forms endpoints.
2. WAF virtual patch: Block suspicious multipart uploads to AEM Forms paths; require auth on administrative POST endpoints; deny requests with executable extensions in uploads (.jsp, .jspx, .jar in template packages).
3. Turn off dangerous handlers: Temporarily disable rarely used form handlers, custom servlets, and scriptable adapters until reviewed.
4. Least privilege: Ensure service users for Forms have minimum rights; rotate passwords and invalidate sessions.
5. Backups & snapshots: Snapshot AEM instances/VMs; export package list and OSGi configs for diff.

Detections: Splunk, KQL, Sigma, WAF rules

Splunk: Spikes of suspicious POSTs to AEM Forms

index=web OR index=aem sourcetype=apache:access OR sourcetype=aem:request
| eval is_forms=if(uri_path LIKE "%/content/forms/%" OR uri_path LIKE "%/bin/forms/%" OR uri_path LIKE "%/aem/forms/%",1,0)
| search method=POST is_forms=1 status IN (200,201,204,302,500)
| stats count as hits, dc(src_ip) as srcIPs, values(status) as statuses by uri_path
| where hits > 50
| sort -hits

Splunk: Multipart uploads with executable artifacts

index=web sourcetype=apache:access method=POST
| search uri_path="*/content/*" OR uri_path="*/bin/*"
| regex uri_query="(?i)(jsp|jspx|groovy|jar|war|class)"
| stats count by src_ip, uri_path, uri_query

Microsoft Sentinel KQL: AEM behind AppGW/WAF

AzureDiagnostics
| where Category in ("ApplicationGatewayFirewallLog","ApplicationGatewayAccessLog")
| where requestUri_s contains "/content/forms/" or requestUri_s contains "/bin/forms/"
| summarize hits=count(), firstSeen=min(TimeGenerated), lastSeen=max(TimeGenerated) by clientIp_s, requestUri_s, action_s
| where hits > 30

Sigma (Apache access log – executable uploads)

title: AEM Forms Suspicious Multipart Upload
logsource:
  product: apache
detection:
  selection:
    cs_method: POST
    cs_uri_stem|contains:
      - "/content/forms/"
      - "/bin/forms/"
  filter_ext:
    cs_uri_query|contains:
      - ".jsp"
      - ".jspx"
      - ".jar"
      - ".war"
  condition: selection and filter_ext
level: high

Generic WAF rule idea (adapt to F5/Nginx/WAF provider): block multipart uploads with executable extensions at AEM Forms paths, require auth token, and rate-limit bursts.

Incident Response Checklist

1. Scope & isolate: Geo/IP restrict; move author behind VPN; snapshot instances.
2. Collect artifacts: Web access/error logs; AEM request logs; OSGi bundle list; package manager history; DAM uploads around suspect times.
3. Hunt indicators: Unknown OSGi bundles, new admin users, modified ACLs, recently installed packages with scripts/templates.
4. Credentials: Rotate AEM admin/service users, directory binds, and invalidate user sessions.
5. Eradication: Remove malicious packages/bundles; restore from clean snapshot if integrity uncertain.
6. Recovery: Re-enable forms/handlers gradually behind WAF rules and continuous monitoring.

Hardening & Recovery Plan

• Keep author non-internet-facing; publish nodes only with minimal APIs exposed.
• WAF mandatory in front of publish; enable request body inspection and strict file-type policies.
• Package allow-list and code reviews for any templates/scripts introduced into Forms.
• Ship logs to SIEM in real time; set alerts for spikes of POST to Forms paths.
• Run periodic integrity checks on OSGi bundles and service user permissions.

Recommended Tools 

We test tools for web-app exposure and SOC triage. Some links are affiliate; we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

• Kaspersky Endpoint Security — clean up admin workstations that push AEM deployments.
• TurboVPN — lock down author access behind VPN during mitigation.
• Edureka — AEM/SOC/WAF courses for your web platform team.
• Rewardful — run referral programs for your security products post-incident.

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