Google plugs Gmail data leak flaw

Google has fixed a security hole in several of its services that exposed the address books of Gmail users, USA TODAY reports.

An attacker could create a malicious website that would copy all the entries in a Gmail user’s address book, a potential treasure trove for spammers. The only condition was that the user would have to be logged in to Gmail or another Google service.
The problem existed because of the way Google used objects created in a lightweight data interchange format called JavaScript Object Notation, or JSON.
“To our knowledge, no one exploited the vulnerability and no users were impacted,” a Google spokesperson said.