CVE-2008-5556

Internet Explorer vulnerability

CVSS

4.3

EPSS

11.2%

EPSS pct

96th

Exploited

No known

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 vendor

Microsoft

Affected product

Internet Explorer

CVSS vector

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

Weakness type (CWE)

CWE-79 — Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

Published

2008-12-12

Risk analysis

Based on its CVSS vector, this vulnerability is exploitable over the network, medium attack complexity, requiring no authentication. Successful exploitation leads to partial impact to integrity.

Its EPSS score of 11.2% reflects a moderate probability of exploitation activity in the wild over the next 30 days, placing it above 96% of all scored CVEs.

Check your external exposure to CVE-2008-5556

Confirm whether Microsoft Internet Explorer is running on any internet-facing host or subdomain.
Match discovered service fingerprints against the version affected by CVE-2008-5556.
Prioritise remediation if the asset is public, business-critical, or near authentication/payment flows.

How ThreatPort helps with CVE-2008-5556

ThreatPort's external attack surface scanner checks your internet-facing assets — agentlessly, from the outside in — for the exposed services and versions that CVE-2008-5556 affects, then prioritises the finding by real risk using CISA KEV and FIRST.org EPSS.

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