All-in-One Printers with Fax are Prone to Hacking: Researchers Say

San Francisco: Researchers from a Nasdaq-listed Israeli security company have warned of vulnerabilities likely to be exploited by hackers on all-in-one printers with fax functionality. The security experts from Check Point Software Technologies, which has a main office in California, said there are serious security flaws in all-in-one printers connected to the internal home or corporate networks through their Ethernet, WiFi or Bluetooth interfaces. They are also connected to a PSTN phone line to support their in-built fax features.

In a technical report released on Sunday, the researchers said hackers could potentially exploit those vulnerabilities to break into the internal network of families or companies to steal sensitive data by sending malicious code to the printers with fax functionality. They conducted a test on a Hewlett Packard (HP) all-in-one printer with merely a phone line and the target’s fax number, and faxed lines of malicious code disguised as an image file to the printer, Xinhua reported.

The file was stored in the printer’s memory, which allowed the researchers to gain complete control over the printer and then infiltrate into the rest of the network connected to the machine. Although the experiment was conducted on all-in-one printers, similar vulnerabilities are likely to be found in other fax implementation, such as fax-to-mail services and standalone fax machines, they warned. (IANS)