Critical error of Google Desktop

15th June 2007

Security researcher Robert Hansen, also known as RSnake, openly disclosed on portal ha.ckers.org new vulnerability of the application Google Desktop. Using it attacker can fulfill the attack of “Man-in-the-middle” class, being caught as if between the user and Google Desktop. The attacker is becoming a peculiar broker who is able to manipulate search results, and in perspective take the control of other programs on the computer. According to Hansen, in the end, the scheme proposed by him allows you to start and control any application, indexed by Google Desktop. But you can control only during the operation of Google Desktop. Hansen notes that the close integration between the Internet and the computer is not the best idea. Nevertheless, according to him, the offered method of attack will be hardly proliferated, as it can be put into practice only by experienced user.