All good things can be manipulated (part 2)

A search engine also can be exploited by people with ill-intentions whom manipulated it to obtain what they need. One such behaviour is know as the google hacking.


Google Hacking

It is a term used to describe when a hacker uses the search engines to find exploitable targets and sensitive data.

Sensitive data can be identified by a set of queries from the Google Hacking Database (GHDB).

Google hacking may seems like a scanty issue, but in actual fact, hackers can obtain sensitive data that allow them to cause harm to your system or sell data that are confidential.

The Google Hacking Database can identify information like that following:

• Advisories and server vulnerabilities
• Error messages that contain too much information
• Files containing passwords
• Sensitive directories
• Pages containing logon portals
• Pages containing network or vulnerability data such as firewall logs.

(Cited: Acunetix; Google Hacking, Wikipedia; Google Hacking. )