CVE-2010-3971

Exp

Use-after-free vulnerability in the CSharedStyleSheet::Notify function in the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) parser in mshtml.dll, as used in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 through 8 and other products, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (application crash) via a self-referential @import rule in a stylesheet, aka "CSS Memory Corruption Vulnerability."

Published: 2010-12-22 Last update: 2026-04-29 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2010-3971 is rated High Exploit Risk (83.1/100): CVSS Critical severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 81.66%, 100th percentile). 8 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2010-3971

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
16533 exploit_db edb 2011-02-08 Exploit-DB ↗
15746 exploit_db edb 2010-12-15 Exploit-DB ↗
15708 exploit_db edb 2010-12-08 Exploit-DB ↗
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Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2010-3971

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 85.60% 81.66% -3.94%
2 2025-05-19 85.81% 85.60% -0.21%
3 2025-04-10 — 85.81% —

Full EPSS history (23 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2010-3971

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.3 2.0 HIGH
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:C)
Complete confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:C)
Complete integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:C)
Complete availability impact.
 8.6 10.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2010-3971

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2010-3971

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
microsoft internet_explorer 7 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:internet_explorer:7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
microsoft internet_explorer 8 cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:internet_explorer:8:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2010-3971

URL Tags
http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2011/01/07/assessing-the-risk-of-public-issues-currently-being-tracked-by-the-msrc.aspx
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2010/Dec/110 Exploit
http://secunia.com/advisories/42510 Vendor Advisory
http://support.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100127294
http://www.breakingpointsystems.com/community/blog/ie-vulnerability/ Exploit
http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/15708 Exploit
http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/15746 Exploit
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/634956 US Government Resource
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2488013.mspx
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/45246
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1024922
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2010/3156 Vendor Advisory
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2011/0318
http://www.wooyun.org/bugs/wooyun-2010-0885 Exploit
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/securitybulletins/2011/ms11-003
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A12382
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