Credit: Paweł Czerwiński A hacker broke into Google’s main official blog and posted a false message on Saturday, saying that the company had decided to cancel a joint project with eBay.The intrusion marks the second time this year that Google’s official blog has fallen into unauthorized hands. In March, Google staffers deleted the so-called Google Blog by mistake and someone briefly took control of the Web address.In Saturday’s incident, someone exploited a bug in Blogger, the Google Web log publishing service on which Google Blog is hosted. The hacker published a note riddled with grammatical and spelling errors that said Google had ended its click-to-call advertising project with eBay because it was “monopolistic.”The next day, Karen Wickre, from the Google Blog team, alerted readers about the false posting and said the Blogger bug had been fixed, without detailing the breach. The eBay project remains alive and well, she wrote on the blog. The Google Blog is one of the company’s main communication tools. As official corporate messages similar to press releases, its postings often trigger news reports, analyst recommendations and investor decisions.Key to Google’s success is that individuals and organizations trust that the company will keep their confidential information safe. Public displays of security vulnerabilities erode that confidence. On the consumer side, Google keeps massive logs of search queries, a portion of which are directly linked to specific Google account holders who have given the company permission to track their search activities.For consumers, it also stores personal information like e-mail messages, digital photos and calendar entries via a variety of online services like its Gmail Web mail service, Picasa photo manager and Google Calendar.Organizations do business with Google on various fronts, including to advertise online, analyze their websites’ traffic, process e-commerce transactions and implement enterprise search systems, all of which involve entrusting Google with sensitive data.Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.-Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (Miami Bureau) Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP When natural disasters strike Japan, Ōita University’s EDiSON is ready to act With the technology and assistance of SAP and Zynas Corporation, Ōita University built an emergency-response collaboration tool named EDiSON that helps the Japanese island of Kyushu detect and mitigate natural disasters. By Michael Kure, SAP Contributor Dec 07, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by BMC BMC on BMC: How the company enables IT observability with BMC Helix and AIOps The goals: transform an ocean of data and ultimately provide a stellar user experience and maximum value. By Jeff Miller Dec 07, 2023 3 mins IT Leadership brandpost Sponsored by BMC The data deluge: The need for IT Operations observability and strategies for achieving it BMC Helix brings thousands of data points together to create a holistic view of the health of a service. By Jeff Miller Dec 07, 2023 4 mins IT Leadership how-to How to create an effective business continuity plan A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood, or cyberattack. Here’s how to create a plan that gives your business the best chance of surviving such an By Mary K. Pratt, Ed Tittel, Kim Lindros Dec 07, 2023 11 mins Small and Medium Business IT Skills Backup and Recovery Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe