Google is a hackers' tool

HACKERS ARE using Google, and other search engines, as one of their favourite tools, according to a security writer.

Johnny Long, who has just released a book called Google Hacking for Penetration Testers, said that the search engine was jolly good at finding caches of credit-card numbers and back doors into protected databases.

At a recent hackers' conference in Washington, Long showed how Google searches could net credit-card and bank-account numbers, tax returns, and other personal information buried in court documents, expense reports and school Web sites.

And Americans who think the Department of Homeland Security is designed to protect you from that sort of thing might be surprised that a lot of the really interesting data Long found comes in threat assessments marked "For Official Use Only."

Long is proud of the fact that with one Google query you can get all the information your need to turn off power to a person's house.

Speaking to Reuters, Long said that one of Google's features is that you can pull up older versions of a web page. However, these "cached" pages can turn up security holes even after they've been fixed, or allow an intruder to scan a network without leaving a footprint.

You can read the Long interview here. µ