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tekno

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 15, 2011
842
4
I've noticed a lot of people will use Google all the time rather than the address bar on their computer. Instead of sending phishing emails and the like, what's stopping someone hacking Google so that clicking on Santander, for example, actually sends you to a fake website where they then steal your log-in info?
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Nothing's stopping anyone from doing that, in fact it's done fairly frequently. I remember when MS Security Essentials first came out, if you did a Google search for it, you'd see a few phishing links posted right on the front page. Generally any search for a popular website will net you at least a couple. Google tends to be pretty good about cleaning them up after a bit, but some do still get through.

These people aren't actually "hacking" Google, rather they're abusing the system that's in place to get their links jumped up near the top of the first page.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
I've noticed a lot of people will use Google all the time rather than the address bar on their computer. Instead of sending phishing emails and the like, what's stopping someone hacking Google so that clicking on Santander, for example, actually sends you to a fake website where they then steal your log-in info?

What you've just described there isn't hacking. Also, I think they'll have people and lines of code checking search results of popular searches to ensure it doesn't happen.
 

R94N

macrumors 68020
May 30, 2010
2,095
1
UK
You don't think Google has thought of this already and has put things in place to stop or reduce the effects of this?
 
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