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Target="_blank" – An underestimated vulnerability (2016)

www.jitbit.com Essays & writing Essays & articles Security & privacy Candidate
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Resurfaced independently across 4 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
4
submitters
4
observed span
2016–2022
peak thread · 58 comments
264 pts
latest 20+ return · 2022-05-18
28 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

I think/hope Chromium's recent announcement about "Expanding user protections on the web", addresses the redirect issue: > When the user interacts with content, things can also go wrong. One example that causes user frustration is when clicking a link opens the desired destination in a new tab, while the main window navigates to a different, unwanted page. Starting in Chrome 65 we'll also detect this behavior, trigger an infobar, and prevent the main tab from being redirected. This allows the…

Nagyman·264-point thread·

It's called Reverse Tabnabbing on OWASP: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Reverse_Tabnabbing - lots more details there. Its detected by the ZAP beta passive scan rules: https://github.com/zaproxy/zap-extensions/wiki/HelpAddonsPsc...

psiinon·105-point thread·

"underestimated vulnerability" that also has been fixed since 2021. I remember reading about this back in ~2016 if not earlier. Was also featured on HN at least twice (via https://mathiasbynens.github.io/rel-noopener/ where I think I read about it first): - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11553740 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16226800

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
399

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
75

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2016-07-20The most underestimated vulnerability – target=blankwebdisrupt20
2017-11-13Target="_blank" – An underestimated vulnerability (2016)First breakout · Best threadhandpickednames26458
2019-12-23Target=“_blank” – the most underestimated vulnerability everantibland10513
2022-05-18Target=“_blank” – the most underestimated vulnerability ever (2021)Latest 20+ point returnthrusong284