CAPEC-173
Action Spoofing
An adversary is able to disguise one action for another and therefore trick a user into initiating one type of action when they intend to initiate a different action. For example, a user might be led to believe that clicking a button will submit a query, but in fact it downloads software. Adversaries may perform this attack through social means, such as by simply convincing a victim to perform the action or relying on a user's natural inclination to do so, or through technical means, such as a clickjacking attack where a user sees one interface but is actually interacting with a second, invisible, interface.
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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-173: Action Spoofing: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/173.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/173?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.
Prerequisites
The adversary must convince the victim into performing the decoy action.
The adversary must have the means to control a user's interface to present them with a decoy action as well as the actual malicious action. Simple versions of this attack can be performed using web pages requiring only that the adversary be able to host (or control) content that the user visits.
Consequences
| Impact | Affects | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Other | Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability | Action spoofing can result in a wide variety of consequences and negatively affect all three elements of the security triad. |
Mitigations
Avoid interacting with suspicious sites or clicking suspicious links.
An organization should provide regular, robust cybersecurity training to its employees.
Weaknesses it exploits
- CWE-451 User Interface (UI) Misrepresentation of Critical Information
Recent CVEs with these weaknesses
- 4.8CVE-2026-123995
Hisense VIDAA Smart TV firmware V0000.01.00a.P0220 contains an input validation vulnerability in the UPnP/DLNA AVTransport SOAP service that allows a LAN-adjacent attacker to inject arbitrary URIs via the CurrentURI field of SetAVTransport…
- 5.4CVE-2026-121244
UI misrepresentation in FileAPI in Google Chrome prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker leveraging social engineering to spoof UI elements via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Medium)
- 5.4CVE-2026-121216
UI misrepresentation in UI in Google Chrome prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker leveraging social engineering to spoof UI elements via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Medium)
- 5.4CVE-2026-121215
UI misrepresentation in Bluetooth in Google Chrome prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker to spoof UI elements via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Medium)
- 4.3CVE-2026-121209
UI misrepresentation in Input in Google Chrome prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker to spoof address bar via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Low)
- 5.4CVE-2026-121206
UI misrepresentation in Isolated in Google Chrome prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker leveraging social engineering to spoof UI elements via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Low)
- 4.3CVE-2026-121190
UI misrepresentation in Extensions in Google Chrome prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker leveraging social engineering to spoof UI elements via a crafted Chrome extension. (Chromium security severity: Low)
- 5.4CVE-2026-121186
UI misrepresentation in Passwords in Google Chrome on on iOS prior to 157.0.8103.38 allowed a remote attacker leveraging social engineering to spoof UI elements via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Medium)
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