ACTION-299: Whack-a-mole definition

It came up while discussing the robustness section of the draft  
recommendations that "whack-a-mole" attacks were being referenced  
without definition.  Here goes:

--
A "whack-a-mole attack" refers to a type of malicious website which  
attempts to perform some other action (e.g. installing software)  
which normally requires user intervention (e.g. by clicking OK on a  
warning dialog) by exploiting distraction and task-focus.

The web site will deliberately creates a large number of dialog boxes  
(real or synthesized with web content) in front of some desirable  
content, motivating the user to attempt to dismiss the dialogs  
rapidly, without inspecting their contents.  Among the many  
irrelevant dialog boxes, however, will be the one presented by the  
user agent indicating the need for a trust decision.  The expectation  
of the attacker is that, being focused exclusively on getting rid of  
the dialog boxes, the user will not take the necessary care to make  
meaningful trust decisions, when they reach the legitimate warning  
dialog.
--

Too wordy?  I resisted giving etymology of the name, easy enough to  
google that part.

J

---
Johnathan Nightingale
Human Shield
johnath@mozilla.com

Received on Thursday, 27 September 2007 14:41:09 UTC