Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Probably the last thing you are worried about is someone hacking into your printer. After all why would anyone want to do that?
The why is easy, a networked printer is pretty much at the centre of a
modern office environment. It will probably have a decent amount of
on-board hard drive storage to keep document images. Documents that
have been printed, scanned or even faxed. Documents that can contain
highly sensitive corporate information.
The older your printer hardware, the less
likely it is to have the kind of security functionality that comes as
standard on the latest top-end devices. And that means the easier it
will be for the bad guys to gain access to your data.
Still not taking this seriously? The IEEE is, and insists that
networked printers and other 'hardcopy peripherals' such as
photocopiers and multifunction devices, however, are vulnerable to
attack and have the potential to compromise the most comprehensive of
security protocols.
Indeed, so concerned is the technical professional association and
standards developer that it has now approved IEEE 2600: the Standard
for Information Technology - Hardcopy System and Device Security.
The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) states
that the standard "defines security requirements (all aspects of
security including but not limited to authentication, authorization,
privacy, integrity, device management, physical security and
information security) for manufacturers, users and others on the
selection, installation, configuration and usage of hardcopy devices
and systems; including printers, copiers, and multifunction devices".
Which means issues such as authentication, authorisation, data
integrity and data privacy are all encompassed by the new standard.
Prior to IEEE 2600, there simply were no standards available in order
to guide manufacturers or users of hardcopy devices in the secure
installation, configuration, or usage of their printers, apparently.
What's that? You are so laid back about your printer that, provided it
actually works and prints stuff without problem you don't even update
the drivers let alone get your knickers in a twist over theoretical
security vulnerabilities?
Larry Kovnat, a product security manager with Xerox, thinks you are
making a big mistake. He told Dark Reading
that when it comes to printer security "You've got to treat them like
another computer node and make sure you put the right controls on them".
Especially when proof-of-concept attacks such as the cross-sire
printing one that can hack a printer after a visit to a website
containing malicious JavaScript code have already been demonstrated.
Or how about the "Acoustic Side-Channel Attacks on Printers " paper which
describes how dot-matrix printers can reveal what is being printed by
reconstructing the text from a sound recording of it printing a
document?
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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