CVE-2008-5556: Microsoft Internet Explorer

Medium severity, CVSS 4.3. EPSS: 11.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

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: version 8 only

Published 2008-12-12. Last modified 2026-06-16.