diff --git a/lib/core/settings.py b/lib/core/settings.py
index 4ee65e0ab..3f02fc6b9 100644
--- a/lib/core/settings.py
+++ b/lib/core/settings.py
@@ -86,7 +86,10 @@ UNKNOWN_DBMS_VERSION = "Unknown"
 DYNAMICITY_MARK_LENGTH = 32
 
 # dummy user prefix used in dictionary attack
-DUMMY_USER_PREFIX = '__dummy__'
+DUMMY_USER_PREFIX = "__dummy__"
+
+# Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-1
+DEFAULT_PAGE_ENCODING = "iso-8859-1"
 
 # System variables
 IS_WIN             = subprocess.mswindows
diff --git a/lib/request/basic.py b/lib/request/basic.py
index dffe93580..9823b1e78 100644
--- a/lib/request/basic.py
+++ b/lib/request/basic.py
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ from lib.core.data import conf
 from lib.core.data import kb
 from lib.core.data import logger
 from lib.core.settings import META_CHARSET_REGEX
+from lib.core.settings import DEFAULT_PAGE_ENCODING
 from lib.parse.headers import headersParser
 from lib.parse.html import htmlParser
 
@@ -139,8 +140,7 @@ def decodePage(page, contentEncoding, contentType):
         charset = extractRegexResult(META_CHARSET_REGEX, page, re.DOTALL | re.IGNORECASE)
 
     charset = checkCharEncoding(charset)
-    if charset:
-        kb.pageEncoding = charset
+    kb.pageEncoding = charset or DEFAULT_PAGE_ENCODING
 
     return getUnicode(page)