Security Flaw Found in Google Desktop Search
Google practically sparked the fire in the dynamite called Desktop Search genre. Since then, we have seen entry of Microsoft with MSN Desktop Search and Ask Jeeves. Yahoo! would be releasing their version using X1 technology next month. But Google’s own entry has not been without its own controversies.
Initial launch resulted in concerns from security advisors who claimed Google Desktop Search was way too powerful in a way it enabled strangers to access information on your computer within a few seconds. Some other raised concerns about the security of the indexed data. But it has been mostly like what happened to GMail initially. People adore it and it is bound to get better with time.
The latest news in is that a scientist and his two students found a flaw in the desktop searching system from Google. The flaw is pretty serious considering it can potentially allow a hacker to search the victim’s computer through the internet. The problem occurs due to something called “composition flaw†which occurs when different technologies are made to interact with each other for a process. And Google Desktop Search is a great example on how an offline utility can be merged with an online process.
Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice University in Houston discovered this with his two students Seth Fogarty and Seth Nielson last month. Google on its part have reported that they were informed about the bug last month by the researchers and have fixed it and new version is already available from the download site.
