An adversary, through a previously installed malicious application, displays an interface that misleads the user and convinces them to tap on an attacker desired location on the screen. This is often accomplished by overlaying one screen on top of another while giving the appearance of a single interface. There are two main techniques used to accomplish this. The first is to leverage transparent properties that allow taps on the screen to pass through the visible application to an application running in the background. The second is to strategically place a small object (e.g., a button or text field) on top of the visible screen and make it appear to be a part of the underlying application. In both cases, the user is convinced to tap on the screen but does not realize the application that they are interacting with.

What weaknesses does CAPEC-506 target?

CAPEC-506 exploits 1 CWE weakness, including CWE-1021 (Improper Restriction of Rendered UI Layers or Frames).

How severe is CAPEC-506?

MITRE rates CAPEC-506 as Low severity with low likelihood of attack.

CAPEC-506: Tapjacking

RadicalNotion.AI

Overview

CAPEC-506 (Tapjacking) is a standard-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.

What the attacker needs

Prerequisites

This pattern of attack requires the ability to execute a malicious application on the user's device. This malicious application is used to present the interface to the user and make the attack possible.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about CAPEC-506.

What is CAPEC-506?: An adversary, through a previously installed malicious application, displays an interface that misleads the user and convinces them to tap on an attacker desired location on the screen. This is often accomplished by overlaying one screen on top of another while giving the appearance of a single interface. There are two main techniques used to accomplish this. The first is to leverage transparent properties that allow taps on the screen to pass through the visible application to an application running in the background. The second is to strategically place a small object (e.g., a button or text field) on top of the visible screen and make it appear to be a part of the underlying application. In both cases, the user is convinced to tap on the screen but does not realize the application that they are interacting with.
What weaknesses does CAPEC-506 target?: CAPEC-506 exploits 1 CWE weakness, including CWE-1021 (Improper Restriction of Rendered UI Layers or Frames).
How severe is CAPEC-506?: MITRE rates CAPEC-506 as Low severity with low likelihood of attack.

References

Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.

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Overview

What the attacker needs

Prerequisites

Related weaknesses

Related attack patterns

Parent

Frequently asked questions

References

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