Google closes hole in desktop search

BOSTON — A potentially devastating hole in Google Inc.’s prevalent desktop search product could have exposed personal files on users’ computers to data thieves. Google fixed the defect within weeks of being informed about it and says it has no evidence the vulnerability was exploited.

The flaw was uncovered late last year by Watchfire Corp., a security-analysis provider. While the vulnerability exists in roughly 80 percent of Web applications, this problem appeared far more extreme “given the sensitive nature of what Google Desktop is doing,” said Danny Allan, a researcher at Waltham, Mass.-based Watchfire.

Google’s free desktop product, first released in 2004, has millions of users and remains popular. Internet tracker Hitwise says visits to http://desktop.google.com tripled in January.

The system lets users set Google’s indexing and searching capabilities loose on their own computers in addition to the Web. The service offers a fast, easy way to find documents, e-mails, instant-messaging transcripts, archived Web pages and other tidbits socked away on PCs. A Google executive once described it as “the photographic memory of your computer.”

The Watchfire researchers discovered, however, that the setup was open to something known as a cross-site scripting attack, which lets an attacker place malicious code on a Google Desktop user’s computer. The PC could be infected a number of ways, including an infected e-mail attachment.