Researcher finds bug in Google bug tracker, gains partial access and scores $15,000 in bounties.
With so many products and services out there, it’s only natural that clever people will eventually discover bugs in Google’s offerings. What’s less common, however, is members of the general populace finding bugs in the company’s internal systems – and in Alex Birsan’s case, it was in Google’s own bug tracker.
The security researcher explained in a blog post how he came across a security flaw in Google’s Issue Tracker, which lists all the bugs and feature requests in the company’s products that have been reported by users and developers, and need to be tackled.
By looking at how the Issue Tracker handled the correspondence about a bug he reported, Birsan figured out that he needed an @google.com email address to access the internal bug database – which he then secured with a crafty little trick. That address didn’t work at the gate, but it did let him access some other areas and even request a ride through Google’s GRide corporate car service.
0