The safest and most ordinary tool in every office might be a printer. But the printer is key to becoming your company’s most vulnerable tool that will let a hacker get into your network. Hacking a printer to gain access to your network will also lead to more than data leakage. To every lock, there is always a key to unlock it. This article will explain how your company’s printer might be a vulnerable spot and a few guides on how to prevent that from happening.
The whole catastrophe of printer hacking in 2023 started when PaperCut, a print management solution provider opened up to organizations that there was an exploitation of their latest patch, and could let a hacker bypass authentication. Now if you are new to administration stuff, a print management solution is an application or software that will let your office’s printer be connected to the devices that you want. It can also track and log all printing activity, so it can help an organization find out and fix mistakes if there are any problems.
Now imagine this scenario, where an organization prints their confidential data to be archived or any important data. Those data, before they get printed, will be stored in the cloud. If a hacker finds a credential to get into your printer or finds a vulnerability, those data not only will be in the hacker’s hand, but also they will gain access to your network.
What happened in the past?
Back in 2018, the internet drama between a YouTuber, PewDiePie, and an Indian company, T-Series resulted in TheHackerGiraffe hacking 50,000 printers to print out a “propaganda” to support PewDiePie.
Printer hacking has been a commonly known vulnerability, but even the 2018 problem was not enough to wake the public about how dangerous this could be, as all cyber threats should be taken as a serious matter. TheHackerGiraffe added,
“I think printer security is severely underrated and should be taken more seriously because most printers have web interfaces that can allow you access to internal data. Moreover, by using PRET you can also read the web page’s credentials using the bash shell.”
But what is PRET?
PRET or Printer Exploitation Toolkit is a tool that can be accessed from GitHub that was developed at Ruhr University Bochum. PRET connects to a device through USB or networks and can exploit the device’s features, this means it is able to do print jobs, gain access to the printer’s cloud & memory, and so on.
PRET is not the only way for a hacker to access your company’s printer. The other way is by stealing printer credentials.
Printer credentials.
Most printers are equipped with credentials, or domain user accounts to do their printing task (by accessing the network). If an organization does not change the printer credentials (using default credentials), then that printer is prone to be hacked. Even with a sophisticated credential, there is still a chance for a hacker to hack the printer by convincing the printer the send the credentials to the hacker, instead of the server.
Not only that but applying penetration testing on a company’s printer can help to prevent it from getting hacked. Any possible solutions need to be involved here to enhance the company’s security.
If a hacker is able to get the credentials to your company’s printers, then there will be a greater chance for them to get access to other equipment of your company too. The remedy to that issue will be much greater than making sure your printer does not get hacked.
Ways to prevent this.
After knowing about printer hacking’s existence and the danger that it follows, not it is time to know how to prevent it from happening. Here are some ways that your organization needs to pay attention to:
- Apply Identity and Access Management (IAM). This option will give notifications whenever there are changes in the setting, and let an easy track to all the printing activities.
- Passwords and authentication. Use strong passwords and use authentication whenever the printer wants to be accessed. Authentication might seem to slow down a printing process, but it is a great way to keep it safe.
- Protect all ways. Protect and put strong passwords to every application and device that needs printer network access, this way, if a printer is hacked, the other data and applications would not be in great danger.
These are just some information regarding printer hacking. There are other resources too in the internet and other platforms that discuss printer hacking.
Read our other works:
• Strong Password: A Placebo or a Real Protector?
• Are We Experiencing Cybersecurity Expert Shortage?
• Which One Do You Need, VPN or DNS?
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