An exploration of unintended online private information disclosure in educational institutions across four countries

Advanced Google search queries can be used to extract sensitive information from websites that can potentially be exploited for malice. The purpose of this paper is to identify the existence of unintended private information disclosure possibilities in educational institutions across four countries through advanced search techniques such as Google Hacking. Google Hacking is a technique of retrieving information that may not be intended for public retrieval using advanced Google search operators. The focus is on the country level comparison of Excel files which contain unintended private information. For this exploratory study, we used relevant Google hacking search queries to retrieve Excel spreadsheet files which contain personally identifiable information from higher education institutions of India, US, South Korea, and Romania. Our analysis of these retrieved files establishes that each country shows (1) a different perception of privacy, (2) a different practice of information sharing and (3) a different degree of vulnerability and exposure. Finally, based on our findings, we recommend policy requirements which can be used to prevent higher education institutions from accidentally exposing individuals to potential cybercrimes through Google Hacking.