In 2017 an academic paper1 about printer security highlighted open ports on many different types of printer. The paper was published on Monday 30 January and the following weekend a hacker using the pseudonym Stackoverflowin searched the internet to find vulnerable printers. The hacker then made his way into over 150,000 printers ranging from large office printers to till receipt printers in restaurants, as well as those in people’s homes.
Our hacker was not malicious, he only took over the printers briefly and printed out a message to tell the owners what had happened and get them to close the open port. He included contact details for himself, and when interviewed he said “I’m about helping people to fix their problem, but having a bit of fun at the same time. Everyone’s been cool about it and thanked me to be honest.”2.
Manufacturers included HP, Brother, Epson, Canon, Lexmark and Minolta, but the writers of the original paper were careful to point out that the sample of printers they used did not include all manufacturers. They found that all twenty of the printers they tested could be attacked in at least one way, to make them unusable, or to be an entry into a computer network.
So if you don’t want the hacker god to wreak havoc on your network, talk to us about making sure your printer and network are as secure as they can be!
Diana Catton MBA – by line and other articles
References
1 https://www.nds.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/media/ei/veroeffentlichungen/2017/01/30/printer-security.pdf
Anonymous interview with teenage high school student who hacked 150,000 printers – GIGAZINE – image credit
