Hackers can set your printer on fire

[bjaming]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...s-demonstrate/

I'm not sure what prompted HP to think that using unsigned updates was a good idea, but this ranks up there with the ad about hackers being able to explode your monitor and fill your face up with glass.

I did speak a few years ago to a red team guy that told me they once attacked printers to pull SNMP strings from the configs to help further their attacks into a blue network but this article from this HIGHLY CREDIBLE news sources makes me chuckle a little inside. This is the only other real printer hack I've heard of out there.

I for one would like to see this demonstrated at defcon 20, and if the hack doesn't work I'll bring some gasoline and help you burn the printer down :D

[rbcp]

Re: Hackers can set your printer on fire

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...s-demonstrate/

I'm not sure what prompted HP to think that using unsigned updates was a good idea, but this ranks up there with the ad about hackers being able to explode your monitor and fill your face up with glass.

HP responded to the hack, saying that "every HP laser printer has a 'thermal breaker' that’s designed to prevent exactly this kind of overheating."

It really was stupid for the hackers to make such an outrageous claim without demonstrating it. Kind of reminds me of an old 90's text file that claimed you could set a fax machine on fire by sending it an endless loop of black paper. Or this old Weekly World News article.