CVE-2006-5442
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedViewVC 1.0.2 and earlier does not specify a charset in its HTTP headers or HTML documents, which allows remote attackers to conduct cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks that inject arbitrary UTF-7 encoded JavaScript code via a view.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceViewVC 1.0.2 and earlier fails to specify character encoding in HTTP response headers and HTML meta tags, enabling attackers to inject UTF-7 encoded JavaScript that browsers may execute as valid script content.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data<= 1.0.2CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- Partial
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify the installed ViewVC versionCheck the ViewVC version file, setup.py --version output, or the version string in the source code. Common locations include a VERSION file in the root directory or version.pyAffected if The installed version is 1.0.2 or any earlier version (e.g., 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0-rc1)
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Verify HTTP response headers include charsetMake a request to the ViewVC web interface and inspect the Content-Type header using curl -I or browser developer tools. Look for Content-Type header valueAffected if The Content-Type header does NOT include a charset parameter (e.g., missing 'charset=utf-8' or 'charset=UTF-8')
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Inspect HTML output for meta charset declarationView the source of any ViewVC web page and check for a <meta> tag in the <head> section with http-equiv='Content-Type' and a charset attribute, or a <meta charset='...'> tagAffected if The HTML pages do NOT contain a charset declaration in any <meta> tag
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Confirm output includes user-supplied content without encodingNavigate to a ViewVC page that displays repository paths, filenames, or commit messages. View the page source to see if user-controlled data appears unencoded or in UTF-7 encodingAffected if User-supplied repository data (paths, log messages, file contents) is rendered without explicit UTF-8 charset and could be encoded as UTF-7
A user is affected if they run ViewVC version 1.0.2 or earlier AND the HTTP response headers and HTML meta tags lack explicit charset declarations, allowing UTF-7 encoded script injection.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataAdd charset=utf-8 declarations to all HTTP Content-Type headers and HTML <meta> elements across all ViewVC output pages to prevent UTF-7 XSS execution.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,272.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2006-5442 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2006-5442 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.
- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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