CWE-1021 – Improper Restriction of Rendered UI Layers or Frames

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Description

The web application does not restrict or incorrectly restricts frame objects or UI layers that belong to another application or domain, which can lead to user confusion about which interface the user is interacting with.

A web application is expected to place restrictions on whether it is allowed to be rendered within frames, iframes, objects, embed or applet elements. Without the restrictions, users can be tricked into interacting with the application when they were not intending to.

Modes of Introduction:

– Implementation

 

 

Related Weaknesses

CWE-441
CWE-610
CWE-451

 

Consequences

Access Control: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Bypass Protection Mechanism, Read Application Data, Modify Application Data

An attacker can trick a user into performing actions that are masked and hidden from the user’s view. The impact varies widely, depending on the functionality of the underlying application. For example, in a social media application, clickjacking could be used to trik the user into changing privacy settings.

 

Potential Mitigations

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

Phase: Implementation

Description: 

This defense-in-depth technique can be used to prevent the improper usage of frames in web applications. It prioritizes the valid sources of data to be loaded into the application through the usage of declarative policies. Based on which implementation of Content Security Policy is in use, the developer should use the “frame-ancestors” directive or the “frame-src” directive to mitigate this weakness. Both directives allow for the placement of restrictions when it comes to allowing embedded content.

CVE References

  • CVE-2017-7440
    • E-mail preview feature in a desktop application allows clickjacking attacks via a crafted e-mail message
  • CVE-2017-5697
    • Hardware/firmware product has insufficient clickjacking protection in its web user interface
  • CVE-2017-4015
    • Clickjacking in data-loss prevention product via HTTP response header.
  • CVE-2016-2496
    • Tapjacking in permission dialog for mobile OS allows access of private storage using a partially-overlapping window.
  • CVE-2015-1241
    • Tapjacking in web browser related to page navigation and touch/gesture events.
  • CVE-2017-0492
    • System UI in mobile OS allows a malicious application to create a UI overlay of the entire screen to gain privileges.