Google Search Results Can Be Manipulated for Propaganda, Researcher Warns

Wietze Beukema of PwC’s Cyber Threat Detection & Response team recently warned of a feature in Google search which can be abused to push political propaganda, oppressive views, or promote fake news.

 

The Dutch researcher said that Google’s “knowledge panel”, the box that typically appears at the right side of the search results to highlight the main search result for a very specific query, can be hijacked to push legitimate search results down the page.

 

The incorrect result would then be highlighted, and can be shared with a unique URL. Beukema found that adding the unique parameter from the URL to the URL of other search queries would result to a knowledge panel where even incorrect results can be highlighted.  

 

 

Source: ZDNet

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