Sears’ Cached Pages Fueled Faster Pages, Even Faster Disaster
Written by Fred J. AunAugust 27th, 2009
In an attempt to accelerate Web response, the Sears E-Commerce site used an aggressive strategy of placing pages into cache as consumers looked. But that security shortcut enabled some site visitors this week—through a simple ULR text tweak—to turn a page for a gas grill into something that dubbed itself a "human cooking" device, one of a group of "grills to cook babies" and a "body parts roaster."
At its simplest, the technique is quite easy to do, which is why it's best to be avoided. The site visitor simply modifies the URL of the page he's visiting. If the stars align, the retailer's server will cache that page, grabbing the rewritten page heading with it. The next consumer that comes along and seeks that page will likely be shown the modified page.
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