Exploring Clickjacking: Understanding Clickjacking Vulnerabilities and ClickjackPoc

Nova Novriansyah
Novai-Cybersecurity 101
3 min readMay 12, 2024

In the cybersecurity threats, clickjacking stands out as a deceptive and insidious technique used by malicious actors to manipulate users into clicking on elements of a web page without their knowledge or consent. This article delves into the intricacies of clickjacking, explores its potential consequences, and introduces ClickjackPoc, a tool designed to test and demonstrate clickjacking vulnerabilities.

Understanding Clickjacking:

Clickjacking, also known as UI redress attack or user interface (UI) deception, is a malicious technique that involves overlaying or embedding invisible elements on a webpage to trick users into clicking on unintended elements. These elements can include buttons, links, or interactive content, which are hidden from the user’s view but positioned in such a way that the user inadvertently interacts with them when clicking on visible elements.

Exploring Clickjacking Vulnerabilities:

Clickjacking vulnerabilities pose significant risks to web application security, as they can be exploited to perform a variety of malicious actions, including:

  • Phishing: Redirecting users to fraudulent websites to steal sensitive information such as login credentials or financial data.
  • Social Engineering: Manipulating users into unknowingly performing actions such as liking or sharing content on social media platforms.
  • Malware Distribution: Triggering automatic downloads or installations of malware-infected files on the user’s device.

Introducing ClickjackPoc:

ClickjackPoc is a tool designed to demonstrate clickjacking vulnerabilities and assess the susceptibility of web applications to clickjacking attacks. It allows security professionals and developers to:

  • Test web applications for clickjacking vulnerabilities by overlaying invisible elements on web pages.
  • Generate proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstrations of clickjacking attacks to showcase the potential impact on users.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of clickjacking protection mechanisms implemented in web browsers and web applications.

Using ClickjackPoc:

To demonstrate a clickjacking vulnerability using ClickjackPoc, follow these steps:

a html file is generated.

Open it with browser.

Above shows that the webpage is vulnerable.

Mitigating Clickjacking Risks:

To mitigate clickjacking risks and protect web applications from exploitation, consider implementing the following best practices:

  1. Implement X-Frame-Options Header:
<meta http-equiv="X-Frame-Options" content="DENY">

This header directive instructs browsers not to render a page in a frame or iframe, effectively preventing clickjacking attacks.

2. Utilize Content Security Policy (CSP):

Content-Security-Policy: frame-ancestors 'none';

This CSP directive restricts the sources from which content can be loaded, preventing the page from being embedded within an iframe on a malicious site.

3.Employ Frame-Busting Techniques:

if (window !== top) top.location = location;

This JavaScript code detects if a page is being framed and redirects the browser to the top-level window, breaking out of the frame and thwarting clickjacking attempts.

Conclusion:

Clickjacking represents a significant threat to web application security, posing risks to user privacy, data integrity, and overall trust in online platforms. By understanding the techniques used by malicious actors and leveraging tools like ClickjackPoc, security professionals and developers can proactively identify and mitigate clickjacking vulnerabilities, thereby enhancing the resilience of web applications against exploitation. As the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, vigilance and proactive measures are essential to safeguarding the integrity and security of web applications against emerging threats like clickjacking.

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Nova Novriansyah
Novai-Cybersecurity 101

C|CISO, CEH, CC, CVA,CertBlockchainPractitioner, Google Machine Learning , Tensorflow, Unity Cert, Arduino Cert, AWS Arch Cert. CTO, IT leaders. Platform owners