Liferay Portal and Liferay DXP's HtmlUtil.escapeRedirect Can Be Circumvented via Replacement CharacterGHSA-548x-j6x6-hcv4
MEDIUMFix: liferay/liferay-portal@36adf82GHSA-548x-j6x6-hcv4 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Open Redirect vulnerability in com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom. A fix is available for com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-548x-j6x6-hcv4.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom☕com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom☕com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom☕com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bomReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
HtmlUtil.escapeRedirect in Liferay Portal 7.2.0 through 7.4.3.18, and older unsupported versions, and Liferay DXP 7.4 before update 19, 7.3 before update 4, 7.2 before fix pack 19, and older unsupported versions can be circumvented by using the 'REPLACEMENT CHARACTER' (U+FFFD), which allows remote attackers to redirect users to arbitrary external URLs via the (1) 'redirectparameter (2)FORWARD_URLparameter, (3)noSuchEntryRedirect` parameter, and (4) others parameters that rely on HtmlUtil.escapeRedirect.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom | ≥ 7.2.0&&< 7.4.3.19-ga19 | 7.4.3.19-ga19com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom:7.4.3.19-ga19 |
| ☕Maven | com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom | all versions | 7.2.10.fp19com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom:7.2.10.fp19 |
| ☕Maven | com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom | ≥ 7.3.0&&< 7.3.10.u4 | 7.3.10.u4com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom:7.3.10.u4 |
| ☕Maven | com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom | ≥ 7.4.0&&< 7.4.13.u19 | 7.4.13.u19com.liferay.portal:release.dxp.bom:7.4.13.u19 |
Affected Products
digital experience platformliferayliferay portalliferayDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.liferay.portal:release.portal.bom to 7.4.3.19-ga19 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-548x-j6x6-hcv4 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop reflecting attacker-controlled destinations: resolve every redirect target against an allowlist of paths or hosts you own, prefer a server-side key over a full URL in the request, and reject absolute URLs entirely where the flow only ever needs a relative one.
How to detect GHSA-548x-j6x6-hcv4
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id ghsa-548x-j6x6-hcv4 -u https://target- Template
- Liferay Portal - Open Redirect
- Severity
- medium
- Impact
- Attackers can redirect users to arbitrary external URLs, potentially leading to phishing or malware distribution.
- Remediation
- Update to the latest supported versions of Liferay Portal and DXP, applying all security patches.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (daffainfo), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-548x-j6x6-hcv4 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.