Google Desktop vulnerability exposed

Google has been prompted into releasing fixes for Google Desktop after it was discovered the popular search utility was vulnerable to intruders. The holes were discovered by a PC security firm who highlighted a script vulnerability that could allow hackers to browse through the entire contents of a hardrive.

Google Desktop uses the same indexing technology as applied by its search engine – it trawls through every single document on a PC to enable users to perform a Google search on their own computer. However, the security firm said that there is a specific weak point in the integration between Google Desktop and Google’s online search engine. They claimed that any hacker could have also circumvented a firewall or anti-virus package to exploit the vulnerability.

“A fix was developed quickly, and users are being automatically updated with the patch,” Google said in a statement. “In addition, we have another layer of security checks to the latest version of Google Desktop to protect users from similar vulnerabilities in the future.”

The specific problem is a feature in Google Desktop which allows users to place ‘Desktop’ as one of the drop down choices on the Google home page search bar. Although the option is convenient, it immediately opens a backdoor between the contents of your PC and the internet.

Although I’m a big fan of Google products, I’ve never been keen on Google Desktop for precisely this reason. I don’t like the thought of anything trawling through my hardrive that can then send that information to a third party. Although they’ve patched it, Google should give users better warning on this type of risk when installing Goolge Desktop. Obviously, the safest thing is to not install it at all and stick to Windows inbuilt search function even if it hasn’t got Google’s amazing search power behind it.