Hackers use Google to get private information

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3680878a11,00.html






RELATED LINKS
=BB Have your say
=BB Subscribe to Archivestuff

Hackers use Google to get private information
26 May 2006
By SOPHIE NEVILLE

Sensitive government information and confidential documents are readily
accessible through Internet search engines, new research has shown.



A Massey University study has found that hacking attacks via the
popular search engine Google are on the rise and New Zealand sites are
less secure than those in the United States and Australia.

Information systems senior lecturer Ellen Rose said supposedly private
information was easy to find via Google. Businesses and government
departments needed to put more effort into protecting their
information.

"Google was intended to help you find things on the Web, but you can
find all sorts of things that perhaps people don't want you to find."

Researchers developed a computer programme that ran 170 queries a day
for three months against the Google database, looking at sites in New
Zealand, Australia, the US and the Czech Republic.

It found sensitive data was easier to find than before and New Zealand
sites were particularly vulnerable. Half the queries returned sensitive
information, but some was available for only a short time, Dr Rose
said.

She would not say what was discovered or from where, but said Google
allowed hackers to find vulnerable websites.
Advertisement
Advertisement

Re: Hackers use Google to get private information

spamhotmail@yahoo.com writes:

> Hackers use Google to get private information

Yes they do.

Google Hacking for Penetration Testers is a book that's been out for
a bit now, by Johnny Long, et. al. His site is at
http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/


--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Re: Hackers use Google to get private information

On 26 May 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.misc, in article
<1148666168.675575.285780@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,

>Hackers use Google to get private information
>26 May 2006
>By SOPHIE NEVILLE

If Ms. Neville had bothered to check google, she would have found this to
be quite old news - I recall articles five or more years ago about the
subject. Seems people who run web sites put all kinds of interesting
information on them, and some of them don't have the skills to be running
a digital watch, much less a web site.

Old guy

Re: Hackers use Google to get private information

Using google you can even find email databases used by spammers. I
could find a (misconfigured) machine that was used for sending spam and
was cached by google. The data was not available anymore. But I can
tell you it contained more than 6 million entries, and making random
grep queries for familiar domains resulted in... found entries.

Kind regards
Ludovic Joly

Re: Hackers use Google to get private information

spamhotmail@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hackers use Google to get private information
> 26 May 2006
> By SOPHIE NEVILLE

No, hackers use Google to get _public_ information, that the information
owners might _wish_ was private.

The real story here is:

Information holders are not adequately protecting information that ought to
be private.

Google merely makes it clear that this is the case.

Alun.
~~~~
[Please don't email posters, if a Usenet response is appropriate.]
--
Texas Imperial Software | Find us at http://www.wftpd.com or email
23921 57th Ave SE | alun@wftpd.com.
Washington WA 98072-8661 | WFTPD, WFTPD Pro are Windows FTP servers.
Fax/Voice +1(425)807-1787 | Try our NEW client software, WFTPD Explorer.