Use of ampersand (&) causes XML parsing failure in JBoss EAP

Issue

A field with a value containing ampersands (e.g. <password>some&data&here</password>) in JBoss XML configuration files results in a failure during startup/application deployment.

EAP 5

... org.xml.sax.SAXException: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference. @ ...
    at org.jboss.xb.binding.parser.sax.SaxJBossXBParser$MetaDataErrorHandler.fatalError(SaxJBossXBParser.java:432)
    at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(Unknown Source)

EAP 7

... com.ctc.wstx.exc.WstxUnexpectedCharException: Unexpected character '&' (code 38); expected a semi-colon after the reference for entity 'data' at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [219,44]
    at com.ctc.wstx.sr.StreamScanner.throwUnexpectedChar(StreamScanner.java:653)
    ...
    at com.ctc.wstx.sr.BasicStreamReader.getElementText(BasicStreamReader.java:699)
    at org.jboss.staxmapper.XMLExtendedStreamReaderImpl.getElementText(XMLExtendedStreamReaderImpl.java:144)
    at org.jboss.as.connector.util.AbstractParser.rawElementText(AbstractParser.java:61)
    ...
    at org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.DsParser.parseDataSources(DsParser.java:229)
    at org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources.DsParser.parse(DsParser.java:189)
    ...