Google acknowledges the security threat in Desktop Seach

Research firm Gartner has warned business users of "unacceptable security threats" in Google Desktop 3 and recommends against using. Google had to admit this.

On February 9, Google launched the improved Google Desktop 3 and added a feature that allows users to search for files on many different computers in the same network. But to operate this function, the application will have to save a copy of the files in the system on Google servers for at least one month so that whenever the user searches, this data will be transferred directly. from Google server to user. Google said the data is encrypted during migration as well as stored on the server.

The danger for businesses is the way Google stores these shared information. Enterprise data is transferred to a remote server for storage and can be shared among different users for 30 days.

" Moving data out of business will be an unacceptable security risk. It's like moving intellectual property out of business ," Gartner said in a recent report.

" We think this is a big problem for businesses. The most accurate is a security risk and we realize that there will be many businesses interested in this issue ," Andy Ku, Google's regional marketing manager, acknowledged.

Google also acknowledged that if Search Across Computers feature of Google Desktop 3 is enabled, the data will be temporarily transferred out of the business and put the business in front of security threats similar to email.

" In theory, this is actually moving intellectual property out of business ," Ku said. " We know that there are a lot of security concerns about Search Across Computers. But Google does not keep the information unless the user accepts to use this feature. Businesses can disable this feature. . "

But Gartner believes that businesses may be exposed to sensitive documents if users do not have knowledge or knowledge about the issue. Google has no official comment on this issue.

Gartner recommends that business users turn off the Search Across Computers feature to limit security threats. Google said that Google Desktop Enterprise version has the potential to reduce those threats and believes that businesses should choose this version.