Printer Hackers Strike Around the World
The hackers, who claim to have compromised over 100,000 printers, caused the machines to print out a bizarre message which reads: "--- WHAT TO DO --- 1. Unsubscribe from T-Series 2. Subscribe to PewDiePie 3. Share awareness of this issue #SavePewDiePie #PrinterHack2 4. Tell everyone you know. Seriously. 5. Fix your printer. It can be abused! 6. BROFIST"
The message refers to YouTube star PewDiePie, one of the platform's most heavily subscribed to creators, and an India music label and movie studio called T-Series which also has a large number of subscribers.
One of the hackers warned that more malicious hackers could deliberately damage printers using a flaw in many printers' firmware which allows data to be written to their chips. "These chips have a limited lifetime of 'writes'," he said in the BBC report. "If you keep the loop on enough, the chip will fry and the printer will no longer function."
