CVE-2023-38873 in Economizzer
Summary
by MITRE • 10/25/2023
The commit 3730880 (April 2023) and v.0.9-beta1 of gugoan Economizzer is vulnerable to Clickjacking. Clickjacking, also known as a "UI redress attack", is when an attacker uses multiple transparent or opaque layers to trick a user into clicking on a button or link on another page when they were intending to click on the top-level page. Thus, the attacker is "hijacking" clicks meant for their page and routing them to another page, most likely owned by another application, domain, or both.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/02/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-38873 affects the gugoan Economizzer application version 0.9-beta1 and its associated commit 3730880 from April 2023. This represents a critical security flaw that exposes users to clickjacking attacks, a sophisticated technique where malicious actors manipulate user interactions through layered web elements. The vulnerability stems from insufficient protection mechanisms that fail to prevent the application from being embedded within malicious frames or iframes, creating an environment where user clicks can be redirected to unintended targets. The core technical issue lies in the absence of proper frame-busting or anti-clickjacking measures within the application's web interface implementation.
Clickjacking attacks exploit the fundamental trust users place in web interfaces by overlaying invisible or transparent elements on top of legitimate user interface components. In the context of gugoan Economizzer, this means that when users interact with the application's interface, they may unknowingly perform actions on malicious pages that appear to be part of the legitimate application. The vulnerability creates a scenario where attackers can craft deceptive web pages that embed the Economizzer application within invisible frames, causing users to inadvertently trigger actions within the embedded application while believing they are interacting with their own application. This technique effectively hijacks user intent and can lead to unauthorized transactions, data manipulation, or other malicious activities.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple user inconvenience to potentially severe financial and data integrity consequences. Given that Economizzer is a tool designed for economic analysis and management, successful clickjacking attacks could result in unauthorized financial transactions, modification of critical economic data, or access to sensitive user information. The vulnerability particularly affects users who may be browsing untrusted websites or who have been directed to malicious pages through social engineering campaigns. Attackers can leverage this weakness to create highly convincing phishing attempts that appear legitimate while executing unauthorized actions within the target application.
Mitigation strategies for this clickjacking vulnerability should implement comprehensive security measures aligned with established industry standards such as those defined in CWE-1021, which specifically addresses improper restriction of rendering of objects with different security domains. The recommended approach includes implementing the X-Frame-Options header with restrictive values such as DENY or SAMEORIGIN to prevent the application from being embedded in frames from different origins. Additionally, the Content Security Policy (CSP) should include frame-ancestors directives to explicitly control which sources can embed the application. Implementing frame-busting JavaScript techniques can provide additional protection layers, though these should be used in conjunction with server-side controls rather than as standalone solutions. Organizations should also conduct regular security assessments to ensure proper implementation of these protections and maintain awareness of evolving attack techniques that may circumvent traditional clickjacking defenses. The implementation of these controls aligns with ATT&CK framework techniques related to privilege escalation and credential access through web-based attacks, ensuring comprehensive protection against this specific vulnerability class.