Google repairs desktop search tool security flawDecember 21, 2004 Google has fixed a security flaw that could have permitted hackers to search the contents of computers running the company's desktop search tool. According to a statement issued Monday by the Web search company, it has rolled out a fix for the vulnerability. The flaw in the tool was discovered in late November by a Rice University computer scientist and two of his students. A Google representative said, "We were made aware of this vulnerability with the Google Desktop Search software and have since fixed the problem so that all current and future users are secure."
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Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, discovered the vulnerability while working with graduate students Seth Fogarty and Seth Nielson. Wallach describes it as a composition flaw--where a security weakness is caused by the interaction of several separate components. According to The New York Times, which first reported the discovery of the flaw, Wallach, Fogarty and Nielson found that the Google desktop tool looks for traffic that appears to be going to Google.com and then inserts results from a user's hard disk for a particular search. They managed to trick the Google desktop search program into inserting those results into other Web pages where an attacker could read them. This would only work after a user had visited an attacker's Web site, upon which a Java program (as created by the Rice group) would be able to fool the Google desktop software into providing the user's search information. The program was able to do anything with the results, including transmitting them back to the attacking site. The disclosure of this flaw comes just days after research company Gartner warned businesses to steer clear of Google's desktop search tool until a more robust, enterprise-ready version is released. Security experts have also warned that virus writers could use desktop search tools to make their malware more efficient. Source: C-Net Asian News Read Serge Thibodeau's daily blogs on search engines at Serge Thibodeau Live. We strongly suggest you bookmark our web site by clicking here. Tired of receiving unwanted spam in your in box? Get SpamArrest™ and put a stop to all that SPAM. Click here and get rid of SPAM forever! Get your business or company listed in the Global Business Listing directory and increase your business. It takes less then 24 hours to get a premium listing in the most powerful business search engine there is. Click here to find out all about it. Rank for $ales strongly recommends the use of WordTracker to effectively identify all your right industry keywords. Accurate identification of the right keywords and key phrases used in your industry is the first basic step in any serious search engine optimization program. Click here to start your keyword and key phrase research. You can link to the Rank for Sales web site as much as you like. Read our section on how your company can participate in our reciprocal link exchange program and increase your rankings in all the major search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Yahoo and all the others. Powered by Sun Hosting Sponsored by Avantex Traffic stats by Site Clicks™Site design by Mtl. Web D. Sponsored by Press Broadcast Sponsored by Blog Hosting.ca Call Rank for Sales toll free from anywhere in the US or Canada: 1-800-631-3221
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