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The silent threat to your b2c login portal

Ever wonder why a user might "accidentally" delete their entire medical history or buy a thousand dollar watch they didn't want? It’s usually not a fat-finger mistake—it’s probably clickjacking.

This sneaky stuff, often called a ui redress attack, works by layering an invisible webpage over the one you actually see. You think you're clicking a "Play Video" button, but you’re actually hitting a hidden "Authorize Payment" button underneath. According to the OWASP Foundation, attackers use transparent iframes to hijack your clicks and route them to another app entirely.

It’s not just about annoying popups. It hits every industry where trust is the main currency:

• Retail: A shopper clicks to "Claim Coupon" but unknowingly "Likes" a random fan page or subscribes to a paid service.
• Finance: A user tries to close a chat window, but the click is diverted to a hidden "Confirm Transfer" button in a background banking tab.
• Healthcare: A patient thinks they're scrolling a portal, but they’re actually clicking hidden links that unknowingly authorize the sharing of medical records with a third-party app.

A 2020 report cited by Okta noted that two-thirds of the top 20 banking sites have been found susceptible to these hacks.

It’s a massive blow to customer trust because, to the server, the action looks totally legitimate. Since the user is already logged in, the session is valid. Honestly, if your b2c portal isn't defended, you're basically leaving the door unlocked.

Next, we’ll dive into the technical "how-to" behind these invisible layers.

How attackers exploit consumer login flows

So, how do these guys actually pull it off? It’s not magic, it is just clever use of how browsers handle layers. They take your real site—the one you spent months making secure—and basically turn it into a weapon against your own users.

The most common trick is the transparent overlay. An attacker builds a dummy site, like a "win a free phone" page, and then loads your login portal inside a hidden iframe right on top of it. They set the opacity to basically zero, so the user sees the prize button but their click actually hits your "Authorize Payment" or "Delete Account" button instead.

But it gets weirder with cursorjacking. As noted by Fortinet, attackers can actually replace the user's cursor with a fake image. You think you're hovering over a "Cancel" button, but the real, invisible cursor is actually hovering over "Allow Camera Access." It’s messy and incredibly frustrating for users who have no idea why their settings are changing.

A lot of devs think their csrf (cross-site request forgery) tokens handle this. Sadly, they don't. As PortSwigger explains, clickjacking is different because the request is actually coming from a legitimate, top-level session.

The browser thinks it is a normal interaction because:

• The user is already logged in.
• The click happens on your actual domain.
• All the right cookies and tokens are sent along because, well, it is your real page being clicked.

In line with OWASP recommendations, you also gotta watch your referer headers and ui layouts. If you see traffic coming from weird places or if your buttons are too close to the edge of a frame, you're making it easier for them.

It’s a huge trust killer. If a shopper in a retail app thinks they're "Claiming a Discount" but they're actually "Buying a Subscription," they aren't going to blame the hidden attacker—they’re going to blame you.

Next, we're gonna look at the actual headers and code you need to stop this cold.

Technical defenses for the modern web dev

Look, we can talk about "security culture" all day, but if your code is letting attackers frame your site like a cheap poster, you're in trouble. You need hard technical barriers that browsers actually respect.

The absolute gold standard right now is the Content Security Policy (csp). Specifically, the frame-ancestors directive. It’s way more flexible than the old stuff because it lets you pick exactly who gets to embed your portal.

If you don't want anyone—and I mean anyone—framing your login page, you set it to 'none'. If you have a partner site or a sub-domain that needs to host your login widget, you just whitelist their specific api or domain.

Content-Security-Policy: frame-ancestors 'none';

Content-Security-Policy: frame-ancestors 'self' https://trusted-partner.com;

This is the modern way to go. It’s better because it handles multi-domain setups without breaking a sweat, unlike the older headers that usually only let you pick one.

Now, don't just delete your X-Frame-Options headers yet. Even though it's technically "old," a lot of people are still using legacy browsers that don't understand modern csp. Think of it as your safety net.

• DENY: This is the "nuclear" option. No framing allowed, period.
• SAMEORIGIN: This allows framing only if the parent site has the same origin as your page.

X-Frame-Options: DENY

According to Imperva, the big limitation here is that X-Frame-Options doesn't really support a whitelist of different domains. If you’re a big enterprise with ten different brands trying to share one login portal, this header is going to give you a headache.

Honestly, just use both. Set your csp for the modern web and keep x-frame-options for that one user still running a browser from 2015.

Another big one is the SameSite cookie attribute. By setting your cookies to SameSite=Lax or Strict, the browser won't send your session cookies along with cross-site requests. This is huge because even if an attacker manages to get a click, the request won't have the user's login session attached to it, so the "Authorize" action just fails.

Next up, we’re going to look at how passwordless security makes this even harder for hackers.

Strengthening identity with passwordless security

So, you've put up your headers and fixed your csp, but let's be real—attackers are always looking for a way around the browser's ui. If you really want to kill the clickjacking threat, you gotta move away from the "shared secret" mess of passwords.

Passwordless tech like passkeys and fido2 totally change the game here. When a user logs in with a biometric prompt—like a fingerprint or face scan—that interaction happens outside the browser's document object model (dom). An attacker can't put an invisible iframe over a system-level biometric popup. It just doesn't work that way.

The magic is in how the authentication is scoped. According to PortSwigger, clickjacking relies on tricking a user into interacting with a hidden session they already have open. Passwordless flows break this loop:

• Hardware-backed security: The "click" to authorize isn't a web button; it's a physical action on the device.
• Origin binding: fido2 credentials are tied to a specific domain. If an attacker tries to frame your site on evil-login.com, the browser won't even offer the passkey.
• Reduced surface: You're removing the text boxes and buttons where attackers try to use ui redressing to steal inputs or actions.

Honestly, using a platform like mojoauth—which is a ciam (Customer Identity and Access Management) platform—to roll out passwordless login is one of the fastest ways to protect your b2c users. It handles the heavy lifting of fido2 so your devs don't have to be identity experts to stay secure.

Next, we're gonna wrap all this up with a quick checklist to audit your portal for these sneaky vulnerabilities.

Best practices for ciam portal protection

So you've locked the doors, but are you checking the windows? Even with the best headers, you gotta stay on top of things because attackers don't just quit.

Don't wait for a breach to find out you're frameable. You can actually test this yourself with a tiny bit of html. Just try to load your login portal in an iframe on a different domain—if it shows up, you're in trouble.

<!-- Simple clickjack test -->
<html>
  <body>
    <iframe src="https://your-portal.com/login" width="500" height="500"></iframe>
  </body>
</html>

To keep your portal safe, you should follow this quick audit checklist:

• Test with iFrames: Use the code above to see if your site can be embedded.
• Check your CSP: Ensure frame-ancestors is set to 'none' or 'self'.
• Verify Cookies: Make sure all sensitive cookies have the SameSite=Lax attribute.
• Continuous Monitoring: Use automated scanners like Burp Clickbandit to find hidden gaps during every release.
• UI Review: Make sure critical buttons aren't placed in areas where they can be easily overlaid by common iframe sizes.

Honestly, security isn't a "one and done" deal. By keeping an eye on your headers and moving toward modern identity standards, you can keep your users safe from these invisible traps. Stay paranoid.