Tuesday, 17 October 2006

Official Google Blog Hacked, Fake Post on Cancelling Click to Call Feature

Google's official blog was hacked over the weekend and a fake message left saying the company had decided to cancel a joint project with eBay. Google patched the bug by Sunday and removed the hacker’s message, but not before it went widely noticed causing confusion among Google observers.

The intrusion is the second time this year that the blog has fallen into others' hands. In March, Google staffers deleted the Google Blog by mistake and someone briefly took control of the Web address.

In the most recent incident, someone used a bug in Blogger, the service the Google Blog uses, to break in. The resulting post was riddled with grammatical and spelling errors that said Google had ended its click-to-call advertising project with eBay because it was 'monopolistic'.

The Google Blog, is one of the company's main communication tools. As official corporate messages similar to press releases, its postings often trigger news reports, analyst recommendations, and investor decisions.