Saturday, October 06, 2007

Do you think Google secure?

As the name comes in mind of Google (a brand name),then we think its secure but it is no longer.Today Times Of India reported a news article "Google faces hacker threat" based on CERTIN (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) warning.You can read this article here

CERTIN,the prime Indian official agency on computer security, has issued a warning that Google and its products are vulnerable to hacking.It has given severity rating high.

It says :"Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in a wide range of Google
products such as Google Search Appliance, Google (Blogspot) Polls
Application, Google's Picasa photo-sharing software, Google's Urchin
Analytics service, including a persistent e-mail theft issue affecting
the widely used GMail service".

It states that there are Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) Vulnerability in Gmail ,Cross-site scripting Vulnerability in Google Search Appliance ,Cross-site scripting Vulnerability in Google (Blogspot) Polls Application ,Cross-site scripting Vulnerability in Google (Blogspot) Polls Application and Cross-site scripting Vulnerability in Google's Urchin Analytics service.

It also issues some preventive measures:

  • Users should be
    selective about how they initially visit a web site. Don't click links
    on untrusted web pages or in unsolicited emails.
  • Disable all scripting languages in web browsers.
  • Check out your filter list in gmail settings for any unwanted filters.
  • Users should especially safeguard their browsers by installing patches for their browser in a timely manner.
  • Web administrators may completely disabled Google Search Application until Google issue a patch to resolve this vulnerability.
For more details read CERTIN warning:
http://www.cert-in.org.in/advisory/ciad-2007-50.htm