Does your company foresee clickjacking? Find out everything about this new cybersecurity attack technique that tries to trick users into obtaining information.
Clickjacking is an attack technique that facilitates the theft of private information to the point that it only requires registration in an application to carry it out . Clickjacking allows hackers to insert an invisible user interface layer between the fingertip and the content displayed on the device’s screen.
After entering the ID and password , the user may think, for example, that they are viewing the screen of their banking application. However, it’s possible that what you’re actually seeing is a replica of the screen overlaid on the actual banking information.
The bank does not check the private information that the user enters, but rather this information is directed to the file servers that cybercriminals use to steal access data to the bank account in question.
Examples of clickjacking
As Panda has published , clickjacking attacks have been successful against large companies such as Facebook , Twitter and PayPal . However, he also claims that these types of online attacks can target individual users.
According to this company, a clickjacking attack can develop like this:
- Users open and load a site or web page.
- Attractive buttons like ‘Play Now’ or ‘Win a Free Ride’ will appear.
- Users will try to click a button.
- But actually they will click on the transparent or hijacked frame.
- Users will follow the criminal’s link, which may lead to the transfer of funds to the hacker, account deletion, or any other type of negative action.
Types of clickjacking
Continuing with the information provided by Panda, the objective of clickjacking attacks is quite simple: trick the user into clicking on a malicious button or link . However, there are different variants of clickjacking that cybercriminals use to achieve this result:
Clickjacking without a browser
Here hackers place a fake icon between the time a pop-up alert is issued and the time it appears on the screen. It is common on Android smartphones.
likejacking
‘Like’ buttons on social media pages are hacked and cause users to interact with unwanted or dangerous pages and profiles.
Cursorjacking
Cybercriminals mask the location of the user’s cursor. Thus, it can show a pointer that is displaced from the real one and make the user click on an unwanted link.
Cookiejacking
Hackers steal a user’s cookies, which contain sensitive data that can be used to imitate them.
Filejacking
Hackers place frames over ‘Browse Files’ buttons, causing victims to unwittingly give cybercriminals access to their online files.
mousejacking
Criminals remotely control the functions of a device and can click on elements, type commands and code.
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Clickjacking attacks: everything you need to know
Clickjacking is a form of attack that seeks to deceive users . They think they are clicking on one access when in reality they are clicking on another. So users think they are using the normal user interface of a web page, but it has been disrupted and when users click the link to something they think is safe, the hidden user interface performs a different action.
The link below is what causes the real attack. This ranges from malicious actions , such as installing malware or stealing credentials, to more harmless ones, such as increasing click statistics on unrelated sites, increasing advertising revenue on sites, getting ‘Likes’ on Facebook or increasing video views. from YouTube.
Returning to Panda as a source for this topic, the company differentiates between several types of attacks:
Autonomous attacks
Most clickjacking attacks are considered autonomous attacks because they rely on a single action. In these cases, a user clicks on an invisible web page frame and performs an unknown or unauthorized action.
Multi-step attacks
Similar to stand-alone, multi-step clickjacking attacks use actions on the part of the client to initiate the threat . These attacks are precise and require users to click on multiple invisible frames to be successful. For example, a hacker who wants a user to make an unauthorized purchase must set up additional frames that cause users to add items to a shopping cart before their final click.
Multi-step attacks
Although many clickjacking attacks are stand-alone, they can also be used to execute combined attacks. In these cases, hackers manage to trick users into falling into a first trap, which can also execute additional, larger malicious attacks.
Clickjacking and DOM
How to avoid clickjacking
One of the most obvious considerations is how to protect yourself from all types of clickjacking. The answer is simple: avoid opening emails , ads and links to suspicious websites. Never install software from unverified sources.
Since clickjacking relies on deceptive social engineering practices, learning how to spot them is your best defense. Beyond that, you must keep all browsers and operating systems updated to their latest versions. Also install strong browser security extensions and use modern antivirus software to ensure you don’t fall victim to clickjacking and other dangerous cyberattacks.
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Prevention by companies: step-by-step guide
Clickjacking attacks trick the user into unintentionally clicking on a web page element that is invisible or disguised as another element. Since clickjacking attacks do not affect the website per se, companies may not take these vulnerabilities seriously .
Clickjacking attacks trick the user into unintentionally clicking on a web page element that is invisible
A website can be defended against clickjacking attacks through client-side or server- side prevention . From the client side there are several main methods to prevent clickjacking, all of them related to the browser.
Intersection Observer API
While you can’t control which browsers your users use, most modern browsers already support the Intersection Observer API , which can display target elements. In this way it is possible to know if the content of a web page is visible to the user (even if it is located within an iframe).
Extensions against clickjacking
There are also some browser plugins designed to protect against clickjacking, such as NoScript and NoClickjack. These plugins are not supported by all browsers, but their popularity is growing. However, you have to be careful as they could disable JavaScript , which would lead to a bad user experience of a web page.
Frame breakage
The practice of using JavaScript to prevent a web page from loading in a frame is known as frame stripping. It works even in older browsers that don’t support newer methods such as the Intersection Observer API or the X-Frame-Options and CSP header.
Prevention scripts are located within a web browser. They make it possible to view the ‘invisible’ frames of web pages and prevent access.
Email Security
The proposed solution in this case is to adopt and use a powerful email spam filter and use it frequently. A clickjacking attack typically begins by tricking a user into visiting a malicious website via email. This is mainly achieved by using spoofed or specially crafted emails that appear to be completely authentic.
By blocking unauthorized emails, you reduce a potential attack vector for clickjacking and a variety of other attacks. It is important to let employees know that this measure has been implemented so that they check their spam regularly.
Preventive actions by the server
Security experts trust and recommend server-side methods for protection against clickjacking. Among these are the X Framework Options and the Content Security Policy .
X-frame option
The X-frame option is an HTTPS response header that helps protect websites against clickjacking by setting whether a page can be rendered within an iframe . Thus, different commands are used to control the iframes. The 3 values allowed for the header are:
DENY – Do not allow any domain/site to display the page within a frame.
SAMEORIGIN – to allow only the current website to frame its content
ALLOW FROM – Only allow frames in on pages hosted at specific URLs.
However, the security provided by the X-Frame options is limited and ineffective on multi-domain sites.
Content Security Policy
On the other hand, there is the Content Security Policy (CSP), a policy that uses headers or meta elements to define or restrict what content can be loaded on your site.
You can take advantage of the CSP frame-ancestors framework directive to tell the browser not to allow frames from other domains.