CVE-2008-3172
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 · uneditedOpera allows web sites to set cookies for country-specific top-level domains that have DNS A records, such as co.tv, which could allow remote attackers to perform a session fixation attack and hijack a user's HTTP session, aka "Cross-Site Cooking."
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 · high confidenceOpera browser incorrectly allows websites to set cookies for country-specific top-level domains (ccTLDs) that have DNS A records, such as co.tv. This enables Cross-Site Cooking, where an attacker can set a user's session cookie to a known value (session fixation) and then hijack the authenticated HTTP session.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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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Check if Opera browser is installedLook for Opera executable in common installation paths (C:\Program Files\Opera\opera.exe on Windows, /Applications/Opera.app on macOS, or which opera on Linux)Affected if Opera browser is found on the system
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Identify the installed Opera versionRun 'opera --version' from command line, or open Opera and navigate to Help > About Opera to view the version numberAffected if Any version of Opera is installed (all versions are affected)
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Check Opera cookie acceptance settingsIn Opera, go to Settings > Privacy > Cookies, or check the opera6.ini / operaprefs.ini configuration file for cookie-related preferencesAffected if Cookie acceptance is enabled (the vulnerability allows malicious sites to set cookies for ccTLD domains when cookie handling is active)
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Verify ability to set cookies for ccTLD domainsCreate a test page with a cookie targeting a ccTLD with an A record (such as co.tv) and attempt to set the cookie from a different origin in OperaAffected if Opera successfully sets a cookie for a domain it should not normally control (cross-site cooking is possible)
A user is affected if Opera browser is installed and cookie handling is enabled, allowing malicious websites to set cookies for country-specific top-level domains and potentially perform session fixation attacks.
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 dataUsers should update Opera to a patched version once released. Organizations can mitigate by implementing server-side session ID regeneration on login and using additional session validation mechanisms to limit the impact of session fixation attacks.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2008-3172 — 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-2008-3172 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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- 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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