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Google Hacking for Penetration Testers explores the explosive growth of a technique known as "Google Hacking." This simple tool can be bent by hackers and those with malicious intents to find hidden information, break into sites, and access supposedly secure information. Borrowing the techniques pioneered by malicious "Google hackers," this book aims to show security practitioners how to properly protect clients from this often overlooked and dangerous form of information leakage.

The sophistication and functionality of Google searches has resulted in several publications boasting Google's superiority to other search engines, providing tips, tricks and even hacks for novice, intermediate, and advanced Internet users. However few of these publications even mention security, and none are written with the IT professional's security tasks in mind. This book not only explores the more obscure and compound features of Google, but it educates the reader how to protect himself against the hacking muscle that this supreme search engine has become.

Google.com domain continues to distance itself from the competition and has reached an all-time high in U.S. search referral market share. As of March 23, 2004, Google.com posted a U.S.search referral percentage of nearly 41 percent. Second place competitor and former leading search referral domain, Yahoo.com, posted a referral percentage of 27.40 percent. Google's market dominance is due in large part to the detail, sophistication, and accuracy of the results it provides. These same factors that make Google so useful to the everyday Web surfer are the same ones that make it so dangerous in the hands of a malicious hacker.