Using search engines such as Google, "search engine hackers" can easily find exploitable targets and sensitive data. This article outlines some of the techniques used by hackers and discusses how to prevent your site from becoming a victim of this form of information leakage.Other Articles By Johnny Long.
The Google search engine found at http://www.google.com/ offers many features, including language and document translation; web, image, newsgroups, catalog, and news searches; and more. These features offer obvious benefits to even the most uninitiated web surfer, but these same features offer far more nefarious possibilities to the most malicious Internet users, including hackers, computer criminals, identity thieves, and even …show more content…

If an attacker connects directly to that web server, the HTTP (web) headers from that server can provide this essential information. It's possible, however, to retrieve similar information from Google's cache without ever connecting to the target server under investigation. One method involves using the information provided in a directory listing.
This example was gathered using the following query: intitle:index.of server.atThis query focuses on the term index of in the title and server at appearing at the bottom of the directory listing. This type of query can also be pointed at a particular web server: intitle:index.of server.at site:aol.comThe result of this query indicates that gprojects.web.aol.com and vidup-r1.blue.aol.com both run Apache web servers.
It's also possible to determine the version of a web server based on default pages installed on that server. When a web server is installed, it generally will ship with a set of default web pages, like the Apache 1.2.6.
These pages can make it easy for a site administrator to get a web server running. By providing a simple page to test, the administrator can simply connect to his own web server with a browser to validate that the web server was installed correctly. Some operating systems even come with web server software already installed. In this case, an Internet user may not even realize that a web server