While efforts to increase awareness about fake news and how to spot it, a new technique using Google has emerged that allows users to tamper with Google search results through custom URLs. The tactic reportedly operates by using Knowledge Cards, the boxes on the right-hand side of the screen populated by Google to provide a snippet of information related to the topic of the Google Search. These Knowledge Cards can be edited, allowing social engineers to attach their choice of Card to any search. A custom search can also be restricted to showing only this Knowledge Card. Thus, a custom Google Search URL, one that could quickly go viral on social media, could be designed to suggest that George W. Bush was responsible for 9/11 or anything that may play into an existing confirmation bias. The researcher who discovered this ability filed a report with Google, requesting the closure of the parameters, but Google has not yet changed the feature. A spokesperson has announced, however, that “we share the concern about the potential for bad actors to create misleading distortions of our search results pages, and are working to fix this issue.”
Source: Google Search Results Spoofed to Create Fake News | Threatpost | The first stop for security news
