A Google dork is an employee who unknowingly exposes sensitive corporate information on the
Internet. The word dork is slang for a slow-witted or in-ept person.
Google dorks put corporate information at risk because they unwittingly create back doors that allow an
attacker to enter a network without permission and/or gain access to unauthorized information. To
locate sensitive information, attackers use advanced search strings called Google dork queries.
Google dork queries are built with the advanced search operators that IT
administrators, researchers and other professionals use in their daily work to narrow down search
engine results. Commonly used search operators include:
site: restricts query results to a certain
site or domain.
filetype: restricts query results to PDF files or other specific file types.
intext: resticts results to those content records that contain specific words or
phrases.
Because search operators can be strung together, an attacker can use complex queries to find
information that was published on the Internet but was not meant to be found. The use of advanced
search operators to find information that is not easily accessed through simple searches is
sometimes called Google dorking or Google hacking.