Use One Gmail Account to Send Emails from Multiple IDs

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

In this post, I am going to show you how to use your Gmail account to send and receive emails from multiple addresses. Most of us own more than one email account say for example, one from Gmail, one from Yahoo and one fromHotmail. If you are tired of logging into multiple accounts to check your inbox or send emails, I have a solution here.

Gmail has an option to integrate multiple email accounts (email addresses) into a single Gmail account. Once you integrate multiple email addresses into your Gmail account, you can use the same account to send and receive emails for different email addresses you have. Let’s take a simple example.

Suppose you have three email addresses (email accounts):

1. john@gmail.com
2. john@yahoo.com
3. john@hotmail.com

You can integrate the emails john@yahoo.com and john@hotmail.com to john@gmail.com and operate all the three accounts from your single gmail account. Here is a step-by-step procedure to do this:

1. Login to your gmail account.
2. Click on Settings at the top right corner.
3. Under Settings, click on the  Accounts tab.
4. Now you’ll see the first option “Send mail as:“
5. Under this option, click on Add another email address you own.
6. Now a small new window will pop-up asking you to enter the details of your new email address.
7. Here you can enter any name and any email address. The email address need not belong to gmail only. You can enter your yahoo, hotmail or any other valid email address.
8. A Verification email will be sent to the address that you specify. Once you verify that you own the email address, it will be integrated to your Gmail account.

Now, when you compose a new email, you’ll see an option to select from multiple address to send the mail. Also you’ll receive the incoming mails for multiple addresses to a single mailbox. I hope this will benefit you.

Before you leave, I should also tell you one good advantage of this. According to Gmail privacy policy, they will not send the user’s IP address in the outgoing emails. That means, when you send an email from your Gmail account , the receiver will not be able to find out your IP address. But you do not have this advantage in Yahoo or other email providers.

Please share your opinions through comments. I hope this helps….

A Closer Look at a Vulnerability in Gmail

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

Gmail follows a strict rule that doesn’t allow its users to have their first or the last name contain the term Gmail or Google. That is, while signing up for a new Gmail account, the users cannot choose a first or last name that contains the term Gmail or Google.

You can see this from the below snapshot:

This rule is implemented by Gmail for obvious security reasons. If the users are allowed to keep their first or the last name that contains the term Gmail or Google, then it is possible to easily impersonate the identity of Gmail (or Gmail Team) and engage themselves in phishing or social engineering attacks on the innocent users. This can be done by simply choosing the first and last name with the following combinations:

First Name        Last Name

Gmail                       Team

Google                     Team

Gmail                       Password Assistance

From the above snapshot we can see that, Gmail has made a good move in stopping the users from abusing its services. However this move isn’t just enough to prevent the malicious users from impersonating the Gmail’s identity. This is because, Gmail has a small vulnerability that can be easily exploited so that, the users can still have their name contain the terms Gmail or Google. You may wonder how to do this. But it is very simple:

1. Log in to your Gmail account and click on Settings.
2. Select Accounts tab.
3. Click on edit info.
4. In the Name field, select the second radio button and enter the name of your choice. Click on Save Changes and you’re done!

Now, Gmail accepts any name even if it contains the term Google or Gmail. You can see from the below snapshot:

Allowing the users to have their names contain the terms Gmail or Google is a serious vulnerability even though it doesn’t seem to be a major one. This is because, a hacker or a malicious attacker can easily exploit this flaw and send phishing emails to other Gmail users asking for sensitive information such as their passwords. Most of the users don’t even hesitate to send their passwords as they believe that they are sending it to the Gmail Team (or someone authorized). But, in reality they are sending it to an attacker who uses these information to seek personal benefits.

So, the bottom line is, if you get any emails that appears to have come from the Gmail Team or similar, don’t trust them! Anyone can send such emails to fool you and take away your personal details. Hope that Gmail will fix this vulnerability as soon as possible to avoid any disasters.

How to Use Google for Hacking

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

Google serves almost 80 percent of all the search queries on the Internet, proving itself as the most popular search engine. However, Google makes it possible to reach not only the publicly available information resources, but also gives access to some of the most confidential information that should never have been revealed.

In this post, you will find the information on how to use Google for exploiting security vulnerabilities that exists within many websites. The following are some of the ways to use Google for hacking:

1. Using Google to Hack Security Cameras:

There exists many security cameras that are used for monitoring places like parking lots, college campus, road traffic etc. With Google, it is possible to hack these cameras so that you can view the images captured by them in real time. For this, all you have to do is just use the following search query in Google. Type in the Google search box exactly as given below and hit enter:

inurl:”viewerframe?mode=motion”

Click on any of the search results (Top 5 recommended) and you will gain access to the live camera which has full controls. You will see something as follows:

As you can see in the above screenshot, you now have access to the Live cameras which work in real-time. You can also move the cameras in all the four directions, perform actions such as zoom in and zoom out. This camera has really a less refresh rate. But there are other search queries through which you can gain access to other cameras which have faster refresh rates. In order to access them, just use the following search query:

intitle:”Live View / – AXIS”

Now, click on any of the search results to access a different set of live cameras. Thus, you have hacked Security Cameras using Google.

2. Using Google to Hack Personal and Confidential Documents:

Using Google, it is possible to gain access to an email repository containing CV of hundreds of people which were created when applying for their jobs. The documents containing their Address, Phone, DOB, Education, Work experience etc. can be found just in seconds.

intitle:”curriculum vitae” “phone * * *” “address *” “e-mail”

You can gain access to a list of .xls files (excel documents) which contains contact details including email addresses of large group of people. To do so, type the following search query and hit enter:

filetype:xls inurl:”email.xls”

Also, it is possible to gain access to the documents potentially containing information on bank accounts, financial summaries and credit card numbers using the following search query:

intitle:index.of finances.xls

3. Hacking Google to Gain Access to Free Stuffs:

Ever wondered how to hack Google for free music or eBooks. Well, here is a way to do that. To download free music, just enter the following query on Google search box and hit enter.

“?intitle:index.of?mp3 eminem“

Now, you’ll gain access to the whole index of Eminem album where in you can download the songs of your choice. Instead of Eminem you can substitute the name of your favorite album. To search for the eBooks all you have to do is replace “Eminem” with your favorite book name. Also replace “mp3″ with “pdf” or “zip” or “rar”.

I hope you enjoy using Google for hacking stuffs on the Internet. If you’ve liked this post, please pass your comments. Cheers!

Customize Google to Improve Search Results

 Posted by Nishanth Singamala

Google is undisputedly the best search engine out there on the Internet, however there are a few ways by which you can customize Google and make it even better.

I have got 3 best free Firefox extensions using which you can customize Google by adding extra useful information to your search results and remove unwanted information like ads, spam and click tracking so as to improve the overall searching experience. The following are the 3 best extensions for Firefox using which you can improve the search results.

1. OptimizeGoogle:

Using OptimizeGoogle, you can get rid of text ads from Google search results, add links from about 10 other search engines, add position counter, product results and more. You can even filter your search results to see dead websites (using WayBack Machine) and remove click tracking so that you can search anonymously. Here is a list of some of the other useful features of this plugin:

1. Use Google suggest (get word suggestion while typing)
2. Add more security by using https wherever necessary
3. Filter spam-my websites from search results page
4. Option to remove Side-wiki
5. Add links to bookmark your favorite result
6. Add links to other news and product search sites

To install the plugin, just visit the OptimizeGoogle page from your Firefox browser and click on the Download button. Once installed, you can enable or disable the customization options from the Tools -> Optimize Google Options.

After you customize Google to improve the search results, how about adding a feature that provides a way to preview the website in the search results itself? Here is a miracle Firefox extension to this job for us.

2.  Search Preview:

Search Preview (formerly Google Preview) will insert thumbnail view of the web page into the Google search results page itself so that you can take the guess work out of clicking a link. Just install the plugin, reload Firefox and you will have the Search Preview at work. You can install this plugin from the following link:

SearchPreview Download

Optimize Google and Search Preview have made our search results smarter and faster. Now how about safer? Well you have another Firefox plugin to make your search results safer as well. Here we go.

3. McAfee SiteAdvisor:

This is a free browser plugin that gives safety advice about websites on the search results page before you actually click on the links. After you install the SiteAdvisor plugin, you will see a small rating icon next to each search result, which will alert you about suspicious/risky websites and help you find safer alternatives. These ratings are derived based on various tests conducted by McAfee.

Based on the quality of links, SiteAdvisor may display Green, Yellow, Red or Grey icon next to the search results. Green means that the link is completely safe, Yellow means that there is a minor risk, Red means a major risk and Grey means that the site is not yet rated. These results will guide you to Web safety.

SiteAdvisor works on both Internet Explorer and Firefox which you can download from the following link:

Download McAfee SiteAdvisor

Here is a snapshot of all the 3 plugins at work:

I hope you enjoy these 3 plugins which make your searching experience a lot more simpler and safer.