cve.bz

CAPEC-222

iFrame Overlay

High severityMedium likelihoodDetailed pattern

In an iFrame overlay attack the victim is tricked into unknowingly initiating some action in one system while interacting with the UI from seemingly completely different system.

On this page

While being logged in to some target system, the victim visits the adversarys' malicious site which displays a UI that the victim wishes to interact with. In reality, the iFrame overlay page has a transparent layer above the visible UI with action controls that the adversary wishes the victim to execute. The victim clicks on buttons or other UI elements they see on the page which actually triggers the action controls in the transparent overlaying layer. Depending on what that action control is, the adversary may have just tricked the victim into executing some potentially privileged (and most undesired) functionality in the target system to which the victim is authenticated. The basic problem here is that there is a dichotomy between what the victim thinks they are clicking on versus what they are actually clicking on.

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How the attack unfolds

  1. Explore

    The attacker looks for a way in.

    1. [Craft an iFrame Overlay page] The adversary crafts a malicious iFrame overlay page.

      1 technique
      • The adversary leverages iFrame overlay capabilities to craft a malicious iFrame overlay page.

  2. Exploit

    They carry out the attack.

    1. [adversary tricks victim to load the iFrame overlay page] adversary utilizes some form of temptation, misdirection or coercion to trick the victim to loading and interacting with the iFrame overlay page in a way that increases the chances that the victim will visit the malicious page.

      3 techniques
      • Trick the victim to the malicious site by sending the victim an e-mail with a URL to the site.
      • Trick the victim to the malicious site by manipulating URLs on a site trusted by the victim.
      • Trick the victim to the malicious site through a cross-site scripting attack.

    2. [Trick victim into interacting with the iFrame overlay page in the desired manner] The adversary tricks the victim into clicking on the areas of the UI which contain the hidden action controls and thereby interacts with the target system maliciously with the victim's level of privilege.

      2 techniques
      • Hide action controls over very commonly used functionality.
      • Hide action controls over very psychologically tempting content.

Prerequisites

  • The victim is communicating with the target application via a web based UI and not a thick client. The victim's browser security policies allow iFrames. The victim uses a modern browser that supports UI elements like clickable buttons (i.e. not using an old text only browser). The victim has an active session with the target system. The target system's interaction window is open in the victim's browser and supports the ability for initiating sensitive actions on behalf of the user in the target system.

Skills required

  • High skill

    Crafting the proper malicious site and luring the victim to this site is not a trivial task.

Resources required

  • None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

Consequences

What a successful attack can lead to
ImpactAffectsNote
Modify DataIntegrity
Read DataConfidentiality
Execute Unauthorized CommandsAuthorizationRun Arbitrary Code
Gain PrivilegesAccountability, Authentication, Authorization, Non-Repudiation
Bypass Protection MechanismAccess Control, Authorization

Mitigations

  • Configuration: Disable iFrames in the Web browser.

  • Operation: When maintaining an authenticated session with a privileged target system, do not use the same browser to navigate to unfamiliar sites to perform other activities. Finish working with the target system and logout first before proceeding to other tasks.

  • Operation: If using the Firefox browser, use the NoScript plug-in that will help forbid iFrames.

Weaknesses it exploits

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

Recent CVEs with these weaknesses

  1. 2.5CVE-2026-18194

    IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0.1.0 through 13.0.8.2 could allow a remote attacker to perform unauthorized actions due to missing anti-clickjacking controls.

  2. 5.1CVE-2026-123529

    Vikunja before 2.7.1 contains a stored CSS injection vulnerability that allows authenticated users with project write access to inject arbitrary CSS via unsanitized table-cell data-background-color attributes. Attackers can store crafted t…

  3. 3.5CVE-2026-123850

    In JetBrains YouTrack before 2026.2.19422 cSS injection was possible in Mermaid diagrams via configuration directives

  4. 3.1CVE-2026-21834

    HCL AION is affected by a vulnerability where the Content-Security-Policy (CSP) security response header was missing from application responses. Without this header, the browser does not restrict the sources of scripts and other content, i…

  5. 5.3CVE-2026-123311

    In JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA before 2026.3, 2026.2.4 command execution via a hidden run control in the Markdown preview was possible

  6. 5.3CVE-2026-18159

    A vulnerability in OpenText OpenText Directory Services (OTDS) on Windows and Linux allows Clickjacking. This issue affects OpenText Directory Services (OTDS): from 10.5 through 26.2.

  7. 4.6CVE-2026-108536

    IBM Db2 Genius Hub 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4, 1.1.5 could allow a remote authenticated attacker to bypass security restrictions due to improper restriction of rendered UI layers or frames.

  8. 5.1CVE-2026-108049

    Clickjacking vulnerability in the Alosuite web application. The affected login interface can be embedded in a web page controlled by an attacker because it does not implement adequate user interface protection mechanisms, such as the X-Fra…

The newest records naming one of them. Each weakness's page lists them all.

Part of

Examples

The following example is a real-world iFrame overlay attack [2]. In this attack, the malicious page embeds Tw…

The following example is a real-world iFrame overlay attack [2]. In this attack, the malicious page embeds Twitter.com on a transparent IFRAME. The status-message field is initialized with the URL of the malicious page itself. To provoke the click, which is necessary to publish the entry, the malicious page displays a button labeled "Don't Click." This button is aligned with the invisible "Update" button of Twitter. Once the user performs the click, the status message (i.e., a link to the malicious page itself) is posted to their Twitter profile.

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