Re: Securing Printers

[Zurt <1algorta () rigel deusto es>]

Ed Donahue wrote:

> The most immediate to me is a denial of service on the printer; 
> filling it's memory with jobs so that no one else could get in the 
> queue (or creating a single job that has so many pages that no one 
> else will be able to get in).  Furthermore, high-capacity printers can 
> burn through a decent amount of paper and toner, costing companies 
> money and inconvenience.
>
> I probably wouldn't be amused to find my printer used and abused.
>
> Another arguement is basic network security.  Because it's not 
> vulnerable isn't really a good reason to leave it open to the 
> internet; it goes against the most basic concepts of security: You 
> only allow what you need.  Anything else can be a leak of information 
> or a point to breach.
>
> -Ed
>
> On Nov 15, 2004, at 09:18, Bryce Embry wrote:
>
> > Howdy,
> >
> > A recent thread on BugTraq, along with some discussions with my 
> > colleagues, has me curious about printer security.  What dangers are 
> > there in giving a printer a public IP address?
> >
> > To me, a printer with a public IP sounds utterly foolish, but I'm not 
> > doing a very good job of making this point with my colleagues.  They 
> > usually respond with the question "Why would anyone want to print 
> > something to a printer they can't even find?".  My answers (usually 
> > "Why not?" or "it's a system running an OS that is subject to 
> > exploitation")  don't seem to be very convincing, especially since I 
> > can't produce any known exploits.  I would appreciate any arguments 
> > and reasoning that would carry more weight, or enlightenment to help 
> > me stop being so paranoid.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Bryce
If the printer is running an OS wouldn't be possible to forward the 
printed jobs to an intruder?? Some documents could be confidential...

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Zurt