Google ‘leaks’ user data
California - Google has confirmed that it unwittingly disclosed login and password information of more than a dozen users.
Earlier this month, more than a dozen Google users thought they were doing the right thing by submitting suspicious internet addresses to a Google website designed to help fight online identity theft.
But tacked onto the end of the addresses they sent to Google was information they didn’t intend to share - including bank account numbers, user names and pass codes.
And that’s only half the story - a cautionary tale for unwitting internet users who trust in all things Google.
Perhaps because the company’s tech-savvy engineers figured that consumers would know better than to transmit such private data, they failed to delete it or otherwise protect it before posting it to Google’s list.
It wasn’t until an online security firm discovered the data that Google was alerted to the problem, according to the firm, Finjan Inc, which runs the Malicious Code Research Centre in San Jose.
