Learn More About Clickjacking

ZDnet and other technical news sites have reported that clickjacking — a potentially serious threat — can affect any browser.

A Look at Clickjacking

Briefly, clickjacking is accomplished by a malicious page hiding behind what appears to be a safe page.   When you click on an item, your computer is “clickjacked” by the malicious code, which then hijacks various components of your computer.This takes place without your knowledge.

Typically, webcams are hijacked, but the clickjacking code can affect other areas of your computer equipment. For example, your sound system or microphone can be exploited, or your computer can be taken over in other ways.

Adobe’s Flash Player was especially vulnerable to clickjacking, but Adobe has come out with a fix to address the issue.

What Browsers are Safe?

Clickjacking is a cross-browser malicious code, which affects virtually all Internet browsers. Merely disabling javascript will not fix it.

A “No Script” add-on that works with Firefox is the only known solution.

Problems with the Clickjacking Fix

After using No Script for a week or so, I disabled it because it made web surfing a chore. Virtually every site I visited was partially blocked due to a YouTube video, javascript code or ad embedded on the page.  For instance, the following were all blocked by No Script:

  • Google Analytics
  • Pepperjam network
  • Peelaway Ads
  • Voxant’s newsroom
  • Chitika
  • and many, many more (see the partial list of affiliate programs and other utilities blocked by No Script).

There’s a little bit of good news for Google publishers and advertisers. Adsense is automatically whitelisted by the No Script add-on. Most of the others will need to be manually approved, and it is unlikely that the average Internet user will know that an ad is safe enough to whitelist.

If clickjacking is truly the threat that some would say that it is, and if solutions such as No Script are the only way to fight back, I can see that this situation will kill online advertising. Adserver Plus, Doubleclick and other big ad networks were blocked by the No Script add-on.

Conclusion:  Maybe the Threat is Overrated

My web browsing experience is back up to speed since I’ve disabled No Script and so far I haven’t been hit by any type of clickjacking activities. Perhaps the threat is not as serious as some would claim.

The NotGuru blog has posted some videos that show exactly how clickjacking works and how to install fixes.

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