"openness of search engine": A critical flaw in search systems; a case study on google, yahoo and bing

TL;DR

This paper identifies a critical security flaw called 'Openness of Search Engine' in top search engines, demonstrating through tests that Google protects against this flaw while Yahoo and Bing do not, highlighting the need for improved security.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of 'Openness of Search Engine' as a critical flaw and provides a case study analyzing Google, Yahoo, and Bing, revealing vulnerabilities and suggesting necessary fixes.

Findings

Google passes the openness test and protects its search system.

Yahoo and Bing fail to prevent access through non-official web pages.

Google has previously had high severity issues related to this flaw.

Abstract

There is no doubt that Search Engines are playing a great role in Internet usage. But all the top search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing are having a critical flaw called "Openness of a Search Engine". An Internet user should be allowed to get the search results only when requested through Search engine's web page but the user must not be allowed to get the search results when requested through any web page that does not belong to the Search Engine. Only results of a search engine should be available to the Internet user but not the Search Engine. This paper explains the critical flaw called "Openness of Search Engine" with a case study on top 3 search engines 'Google', 'Yahoo' and 'Bing'. This paper conducts an attack based test using J2EE framework and proves that 'Google' passed the test and it strongly protects its Critical Search System, where 'Yahoo' and 'Bing' are failed to protect their Search Engines. But previously 'Google' also had other high severity issues with the Openness of search engine; this paper reveals those issues also. Finally this paper appeals strongly to the all top Search Engines to fix their critical flaws of "Openness of Search Engine".