YouTuber Fan Promotes Subscription Via Printer Hack
This week an anonymous individual hacked 50,000 printers, causing them to print out a message that urged people to subscribe to the PewDiePie YouTube channel. PewDiePie was battling with a rival for subscribers in order to retain its status as the most subscribed channel on YouTube.
The printer hacker said they had identified 800,000 printers with open security settings and selected 50,000 to print out support for PewDiePie. The hacker reportedly used a tool called the Printer Exploitation Toolkit (or PRET) to send automated scripts to printers that had IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) ports, LPD (Line Printer Daemon) ports, and port 9100 left open over the Internet.
The connections between your networks and the Internet and/or other partner networks, can expose your systems and technologies to attack. By creating and implementing some simple policies and appropriate architectural and technical responses, organisations can reduce the chances of these attacks succeeding.
Duncan is a technology professional with over 20 years experience of working in various IT roles. He has a interest in cyber security, and has a wide range of other skills in radio, electronics and telecommunications.