Reverse Tab Nabbing

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

Reverse Tabnabbing is a security attack where a link opened in a new tab can replace a website in an existing tab with a fake one, potentially leading to phishing attacks.

🧐 Why ?

Understanding Reverse Tabnabbing is crucial because it is a threat that can compromise user data and privacy. It's a way for attackers to trick users into entering their credentials on what seems to be a trusted website but is, in fact, a malicious one. This can lead to data breaches, identity thefts, and other cybercrimes.

⛏️ How ?

To implement Reverse Tabnabbing, an attacker embeds a malicious link into a website. When a user clicks this link, it opens in a new tab. The malicious code then uses the window.opener API to change the location of the original tab to a phishing site. To protect against this, always validate and sanitize links and consider using the rel=noopener attribute in your HTML code to prevent the newly opened page from having any control over the original one.

⏳ When ?

Reverse Tabnabbing was first identified as a security threat in 2008. Since then, it has been used by cybercriminals in various ways, making it a persistent issue in cybersecurity.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

In Reverse Tabnabbing, the attacker leverages the HTML API window.opener. This object provides a reference to the window that opened the current window, allowing the new page to manipulate the original one. By setting window.opener.location to a malicious URL, the attacker can force the original tab to navigate to the phishing site. This is particularly effective as users might not notice the change, especially if the fake site closely resembles the original one. While some browsers have implemented measures to prevent this attack, not all are immune, making it a relevant threat in today's web browsing environment.