'Confidential US security documents' flaunted online
The information appears to have reached the public domain via Google, illustrating how the search engine can be used to uncover links to confidential information online.
According to the Web site hosting this information, the Department of Energy accidentally published the documents online. They were then discovered by Google and added to its cache of Web content. The mistake was subsequently spotted and the documents taken down, but the Web site owners were able to use Google to find the documents in its cache, and copy and publish them.
The Web site's administrators wrote: "A person pointed out many of these [documents] plus a few others were available in Google caches. [Web site name] found numerous HTML conversions in the Google caches, although none of the original PDFs were accessible. The original Google source site, XXXXXX, appears to have been withdrawn... many of its Web offerings remain online as cached files."
Google hacking -- accessing confidential data from publicly available links on the search engine -- is set to become a big problem this year, experts have predicted. Security company CyberTrust has warned that Internet-connected devices, even Web cams, must be treated as a potential security threat.
The administrators also wrote that a person claiming to be from the Department of Energy had telephoned them, asking that the documents were removed.
"We said no," they wrote. "He said, 'I didn't think so. But the briefs are for official use only, couldn't they be removed?' We said no, the briefs provide good public information. He said, 'okay, thanks for talking to me.' A courteous Homeland Security contractor, that's good news, unlike the briefs."