HP Printers Vulnerable to Hackers
ViaForensics researcher Sebastian Guerrero recently released a report in which he describes a number of ways attackers could turn your boring, humdrum printer against you. According to his findings, potential vulnerabilities range from having to reset your printer (annoying) to the breach of encrypted documents (terrifying).
The research focuses on the HP-designed JetDirect software, which is used by a number of companies' printers to easily connect to networks. Part of what JetDirect does is add printer language commands to documents which control certain aspects of the print job, such as formatting the page.
"These values are parsed and interpreted by the printer," wrote Guerrero, whose work was translated from Spanish on viaForensics' website. "So that if we introduce a value not expected or desired, it may cause the printer to cease to be functional."
