Researchers
at Columbia University claim they’ve discovered a vulnerability that
could let hackers remotely access your printer for sorts of bad things –
like making it go up in flames. The researchers have been probing the
printers, specifically those made by HP, for several months. They have
already briefed the relevant federal agencies and the folks at HP about
the problem. The problem, claim the scientists, lies in the printers’
firmware and the fact that, while many recently built printers are so
multifunctional that they operate in much the same way a computer does –
and are often connected to the internet – they do not have the same
protection that a networked computer does. Stolfo and his team
demonstrated that a hacker could remotely heat up a printer’s fuser,
causing the paper to turn brown and smoke. A thermal switch caused the
printer to turn off before it could truly catch fire, but the
researchers believe that other printers are more vulnerable to going up
in flames.
