News - Hacker replaces Canon Pixma printer firmware with Doom game

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Pixma's "terrible" firmware encryption leaves it open to exploits reveals ethical hacker.

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Read more.

As impressive as that is, I have to ask, what was the point?

It's just a proof of concept of how insecure these connected "dumb" devices are. If he was able to reverse engineer the firmware to put doom on it, then it's a much smaller step to reverse engineer some firmware that sends the data that's being printed to a remote location. People print off a lot of personal data to home printers like bank statements, important documents like for taxes, immigration etc. etc.

Imagine how deep identity theft could go just by compromising someone's home printer.

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Originally Posted by RT-XD

As impressive as that is, I have to ask, what was the point?

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to highlight that we are all sleepwalking into having always-connected devices that may contain very sensitive data about us, and theres no form of security on them atall.
and that companies don't always think of security when designing new internet connected devices.

he could easily have added a code that sent a copy of what was being printed to his computer aswell.
or even hacked into the computer it was plugged into via its usb port and use the printer as the route into the companies/home network.


so lots of things that need to be sorted.


unless you are perfectly fine with anyone at anytime being able to look up anything you do online via any of your connected devices.

Wow! Ok I understand. Thanks for the replies.
Hopefully this will make companies realise that security really needs to be stepped up.

16-bit key? Outstanding.

Hmmm, good job my Canon Pixma is offline and moreover not even connected to a PC, I print that rarely a flash drive does the job fine..

Would make photo copying at work a little more interesting.

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Originally Posted by RT-XD

As impressive as that is, I have to ask, what was the point?

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You can play DOOM while your PDF's print on a MFD ?

I think Mr Jordon has too much time on his hands! Are we all Doomed?

I think my toaster has been hacked, it's running slowly! :)

We're all missing the point. Forget the security issue. The REAL question is, can it run Crysis?

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Originally Posted by LeetyMcLeet

We're all missing the point. Forget the security issue. The REAL question is, can it run Crysis?

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The day my toaster can run crysis I will be a happy man as it would mean my phone might just be capable of 3D holographic projection

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Originally Posted by LeetyMcLeet

We're all missing the point. Forget the security issue. The REAL question is, can it run Crysis?

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The true question to your questions is, can it launch Crysis?

Canon should have put a spin on it:

"Canon Pima - Now with free games!"

http://video.contextis.co.uk/PixmaDoom/

Just waiting for the Pixma BFG edition