Is Clickjacking a Serious Threat?

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

In laymen’s terms, clickjacking happens when a malicious page is hiding behind what appears to be a safe webpage. When you click an item on the supposedly safe page, your computer is clickjacked by malicious code which then hijacks your pc’s accessories or other components.This happens without your knowledge.

Typically, clickjacking will affect webcams, but it can also hijack other areas of your computer. 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 particularly vulnerable to clickjacking threats; however, Adobe has come out with a fix to address the issue.

What Browsers are Affected?

Clickjacking is a malicious piece of code that can affect any Internet browser. 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. Every site that I visited was blocked to some degree or another because the site contained YouTube videos, ads or javascript coding. 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).

One of the few ad networks automatically whitelisted by the No Script add-on is Google’s Adsense. 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 and other heavy hitting advertising networks were blocked by the Firefox 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 more overrated than it actually is.

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