To date a Wi-Fi printer It is one of the most widely used devices in small and medium-sized businesses, however, they are at the same time the most vulnerable device to attacks by cybercriminals with the aim of causing economic damage to your business or simply destroying it. render inoperative. That’s why we’re going to explain the dangers of leaving this device so commonly used in so many homes and offices unprotected.
At a time when everything is connected to the network, we tend to let our guard down on certain elements connected to the Internet, which tend to temporarily or permanently host sensitive data accessible by third parties without our knowledge. That is why, in these times, it is important to be more careful and take appropriate measures.
Why do they want to hack the Wi-Fi printer?
A user who takes control of a Wi-Fi printer cannot only access it to print documents. Otherwise, they manage to take full control of it and it becomes a problem because it is usually the weakest part in terms of security of a computer network. And let’s not forget that many today use flash memories to function which stores documents that have been printed and therefore if you are a large company it means that they can have access to key documents . Let’s not forget that printers are much less secure than a PC and that is why they are the target of malicious attacks to obtain information.
Since the vast majority of printers today are Wi-Fi, this becomes a soft skill for cybercriminals, as it allows them, if they have sufficient skill, to access it without the rest of the stuff. from the network discovers it. As long as they can access the wireless network, which, due to the limitations of the 802.11 standard, is not difficult to achieve.
What are the consequences if they achieve their goal?
Well, there are several and with a fairly high level of concern:
- Cybercriminals can access any information that makes it to the printer, which can be used as a method of blackmail, as well as a way to obtain key information to be able to carry out massive attacks on internal servers and networks of the company. We cannot forget that each printer contains a computer with its processor, RAM and storage, which although very simple, is complex enough that a savvy hacker could use it as an attack vector.
- A very common trick is denial of service attacks, which occur when a network is saturated with so many requests that they cannot be satisfied. A good way to do this is to use an internal device on the network and hacking the Wi-Fi printer is a good solution for that.
As you can see, hacking a Wi-Fi printer can become a powerful tool to harm businesses and therefore, it is important to add extra security to it in case this happens.
How do I protect my Wi-Fi printer from malicious attacks?
There are several ways to do this, however, we are going to give you the ones that are available to everyone.
- The Wi-Fi passwords given by the telephone operators are on the internet lists, so if you are still using the one supplied with the router, then change it without waiting a second.
- Disable the printer’s wireless connection if you are not using it for printing documents or any other function. You can do this by pressing a button for said function
- If your business is a certain size, use a hardware VPN. Since this allows us to hide IP addresses, it is difficult for malicious elements to gain access to the device.
Usually it all boils down to shielding the connection to the corporate Wi-Fi network, once you’ve done that right you can be much calmer. Our advice if you need to print wirelessly? Use a router with USB ports that allow you to connect it, as you’re going to get a much higher level of security than a printer over Wi-Fi Direct.
