Tabnabbing Attack

By
Anandhu Krishnan
Published on
14 May 2024
Vulnerability

Description

A reverse tabnabbing attack involves rewriting an already existing page with phishing content using a page linked from the target page. Due to the fact that the user was originally on a legitimate site, it is less likely they will notice that it has been changed into a phishing site, especially if the site looks similar to the target. In this case, credentials (or other sensitive data) are sent to the phishing site instead of to the legitimate site if the user authenticates on the newly created page.

Recommendation

  • For HTML links, add the attribute rel=”“noopener”” on the tag used to create the link from the parent page to the child page. This attribute value cuts the link, but depending on the browser, lets referrer information be present in the request to the child page. Also remove the referrer information use this attribute value: rel=”“noopener noreferrer””.

  • For the JavaScript window.open function, add the values noopener,noreferrer in the windowFeatures parameter of the window.open function.”

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Written by
Anandhu Krishnan
Anandhu Krishnan
Lead Engineer
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