CVE-2016-6908
CWE-601Published: January 26, 2017· Updated: Jun 17, 2026
Official Description
Characters from languages are such as Arabic, Hebrew are displayed from RTL (Right To Left) order in Opera 37.0.2192.105088 for Android, due to mishandling of several unicode characters such as U+FE70, U+0622, U+0623 etc and how they are rendered combined with (first strong character) such as an IP address or alphabet could lead to a spoofed URL. It was noticed that by placing neutral characters such as "/", "?" in filepath causes the URL to be flipped and displayed from Right To Left. However, in order for the URL to be spoofed the URL must begin with an IP address followed by neutral characters as omnibox considers IP address to be combination of punctuation and numbers and since LTR (Left To Right) direction is not properly enforced, this causes the entire URL to be treated and rendered from RTL (Right To Left). However, it doesn't have be an IP address, what matters is that first strong character (generally, alphabetic character) in the URL must be an RTL character.
Technical Analysis
CVE-2016-6908 can be exploited remotely over the network without requiring physical or adjacent access, significantly expanding the attack surface for threat actors.
Exploitation does not require any privileges, though user interaction (Required) is needed, which slightly reduces the risk of mass automated attacks.
The vulnerability has a "Changed" scope, meaning successful exploitation can impact components beyond the vulnerable component itself — such as the host operating system or adjacent services.
CVSS v3.1 Vector Breakdown
Affected Vendors & Products
Exploit & PoC Resources
Official Patches & Advisories
All References (2)
Quick Facts
Related CVEs (CWE-601)
Recommended Actions
- →Apply vendor patches immediately
- →Monitor CVE-2016-6908 in threat intel feeds
- →Review IDS/IPS signatures for exploitation attempts