You have been warned!

It looks like patches and updates are the theme of this week and here is a story that includes a Robin Hood style hacker.

White hat hackers are people who work like hackers, but rather than exploit any vulnerabilities they find, they report them to vendors – sometimes for a reward – so they can be fixed before black hat hackers can exploit them. This white hat hacker took a slightly different approach and exploited a vulnerability in Anycubic 3D printers and downloaded a harmless text file warning to the machines.

Anycubic 3D printers hacked worldwide to expose security flaw (bleepingcomputer.com)

Anycubic has yet to comment on the white hat hacker – as to whether they contacted them first – or on the vulnerability, but it remains that their user base has received a warning exploiting a weak API Anycubic relies on.

Your takeaway

You probably do not have this type of printer but the story highlights whatever hardware you have you need to have a plan in place to keep the firmware updated.

Clive Catton MSc (Cyber Security) – by-line and other articles