Categories: Hacking

Google Vulnerabilities out of bounty program, how is it possible?

Experts at Hacker Online Club published a post on Google vulnerabilities that are currently not under bug bounty program of the company.

Today I desire to propose the information on Un-patched Google Vulnerabilities published on the web site Hackers Online Club trying to understand a hacker how could exploit them.

The first Google Vulnerability is a XSS flaw on the Submission Page, the post proposes the below image to demonstrate the flaw and the URLs used to test it.

https://www.google.com/appserve/security-bugs/new?rl=<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>

An attacker exploiting an XSS vulnerability can inject malicious client-side script in a website which is visited by the victims. XSS is typically used as a method to bypass access controls or “impersonate” another user hijacking a logged in user’s session. The technique allow hackers the change of logged in user’s password and throw out the session of the victim while the attacker maintains access.

In recent attacks the XSS was used to hijacked the administrator’s session giving hacker full admin privileges on the targeted web application.

A second Google vulnerability is a XSS flaw on Google Translate Page

The team at Hackers Online Club published the reply received by Google when it reported the flaw:

“Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in “sandbox” domains. We maintain a number of domains that leverage the same-origin policy to safely isolate certain types of untrusted content; the most prominent example of this is “*.googleusercontent.com”. Unless an impact on sensitive user data can be demonstrated, we do not consider the ability to execute JavaScript in that domain to be a bug.”

The third Google Vulnerability is a Redirect URL, clicking on a link apparently addressing Google domain user is redirected on a third party website.

http://www.google.com/search?source=hackersonlineclub.com&hl=www.hackersonlineclub.com&q=www.hackersonlineclub.com&btnG=www.hackersonlineclub.com&btnI=www.hackersonlineclub.com

https://www.google.com/search?btnI=&q=allinurl:http://securityaffairs.co/

http://www.google.com/search?btnI&q=allinurl:http://www.hackersonlineclub.com/

An open URL Redirection vulnerability could be used to convince a user to click on a trusted link which is specially crafted to take them to an arbitrary website, the target website could be used to serve a malware or for a phishing attack. Following the reply of Google to the Hacker Online Club.

“URL redirection. We recognize that the address bar is the only reliable security indicator in modern browsers; consequently, we hold that the usability and security benefits of a small number of well-designed and closely monitored redirectors outweigh their true risks.”

Now the question is … why the above bugs are out of the bounty program?

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Google, vulnerability)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.