Let Google Be Your Guide

Everyone knows that google is a great tool for finding information on the internet. What many don't realize is that google indexes many things that people didn't intend to make public, and makes them easily found with very little effort.
There are many search "operators" that every hacker/security person should know about, such as:
site:
filetype:
inurl:
intitle:
These operators can be used together as well as with normal search criteria.

One very simple search I performed yesterday led me to send this email today:

In case you are wondering, I ended up having a nice phone conversation with the company's Director of IT, and after hyperventilating for a few moments, he assured me that all their resources would be focused on taking care of this issue immediately.


Now, at this point you may be asking yourself, "It can't really be THAT EASY to find sensitive data with google, can it?"
Well, yes... yes it can.