First a digression: Divemedic has a good post up about how a vulnerability in Tesla cars lets users turn on for-pay features that they haven't purchased.
And so to vulnerable printers:
Canon warned users that sensitive information on the Wi-Fi connection settings stored in the memories of home, office and large format inkjet printers may not be deleted by the usual initialization process.
The large printer vendor posted in an advisory Monday that when a third-party takes control of a printer, such as when repairing, lending, selling or disposing the device, a user’s information may get exposed and potentially vulnerable to a wide range of malicious activities.
Canon provided the following instructions to mitigate the issue by wiping Wi-FI settings:
- Reset all settings (Reset settings ‐> Reset all).
- Enable the wireless LAN.
- Reset all settings one more time.
It's important to do a factory reset (sometimes called "Factory Restore") on any electronic device you dispose of.
4 comments:
Thank you for the advice, we use Canon printers here at home, so I will keep this in mind when I upgrade.
On printers, Mind the HP Instant Ink sales pitch. If you enroll and later decide to quit for whatever reason, they will remotely disable your printer. So I imagine they or some malevolent interest has access to what you have on your printer. Hell, bad guys (or 'good' guys) may even be able to have the printer print and transfer the documents to them at the same time.
I had the same HP lock-out when I cancelled the Instant Ink 'feature'. I binned my ultra-smart HP printer, purchased a little-used older printer from a well-known auction website (for £15) which readily accepted after-market ink supplies. It works well, does duplex printing and it DOES NOT communicate with "HP Mothership".
My "wiping" consists of a .50 caliber 385 grain black powder round at 100 yards. It fun and educational.
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