CVE-2008-5556

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.3 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 11.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2008-12-12 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-79

Description

The XSS Filter in Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta 2 does not recognize attack patterns designed to operate against web pages that are encoded with utf-7, which allows remote attackers to bypass the XSS protection mechanism and conduct XSS attacks by injecting crafted utf-7 content. NOTE: the vendor reportedly disputes this issue, stating "Behaviour is by design.

Affected products

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11: 8-beta2

References

http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/499124/100/0/threaded
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/47277
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/499124/100/0/threaded
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/47277

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