diff --git a/wp-includes/formatting.php b/wp-includes/formatting.php
index 4d834550f5..ce33351a84 100644
--- a/wp-includes/formatting.php
+++ b/wp-includes/formatting.php
@@ -688,6 +688,12 @@ function _wp_specialchars( $string, $quote_style = ENT_NOQUOTES, $charset = fals
 		$quote_style = ENT_NOQUOTES;
 	}
 
+	if ( ! $double_encode ) {
+		// Guarantee every &entity; is valid, convert &garbage; into &garbage;
+		// This is required for PHP < 5.4.0 because ENT_HTML401 flag is unavailable.
+		$string = wp_kses_normalize_entities( $string );
+	}
+
 	$string = @htmlspecialchars( $string, $quote_style, $charset, $double_encode );
 
 	// Backwards compatibility
diff --git a/wp-includes/version.php b/wp-includes/version.php
index 9f20cb58cc..54e3e06459 100644
--- a/wp-includes/version.php
+++ b/wp-includes/version.php
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  *
  * @global string $wp_version
  */
-$wp_version = '4.3-alpha-32850';
+$wp_version = '4.3-alpha-32851';
 
 /**
  * Holds the WordPress DB revision, increments when changes are made to the WordPress DB schema.