Google Taps into an Electronic Medical Record
 Google’s search engines are quite powerful at finding almost any information that is available on the Web but the staff and patients of Drexel University College of Medicine didn’t count on Google being able to slide past the security of their online database of 5,500 records of the medical college's neurosurgical patients. The patient record included addresses, telephone numbers and detailed write-ups of diseases and treatments.
Web-enabled databases are coming into greater use because of the ease of use. The database in question was a web-enabled version FileMaker Pro. By simply typing into Google, “select a database to view” - a common query to FileMaker, the medical records appeared. Another result of this search produced aother database containing the addresses, phone numbers and detailed biographies of several hundred teachers affiliated with Apple Computer. It also included each teacher's user name and password. The database was not protected by any form of security. According a Wired news story, “a FileMaker spokesman said the company tries its best to make users aware of security issues” and they try to encourage users to regularly update to the latest security updates.
We knew that Google was powerful, was an amazing feat!
Thanks to Steve at Tales of Hoffman for this one.
9:34:12 PM 
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