HP Struck By Lawsuit for Printer Hack

HP has been struck by lawsuit over their recent printer hack, and among the major compliant in the lawsuit there is Goldblatt, which is saying that the IT major should’ve alerted the printer owners prior to the hack attack.

In short, the problem is very huge one. The HP LaserJet printers that were manufactured before 2009 will recognize the firmware updates devoid of identifying the actual source of their origin. This means (at least theoretically) that any hacker can use a malicious firmware modernize and can easily upload that on to a printer for stopping it working or for spying the print tasks and even to set it on fire by making the printer fuser overwork. The printer fuser is one of printers’ parts which actually are used for drying the ink on the paper.

According to HP, they’ve never heard of any hacking for their printers by criminals and also have mentioned that their printers come with “thermal breakers”, which at any condition will prevent their printer from such hacker inferno. But HP had accepted the fundamental problem of security breach.

The lawsuit against HP demands paying out of unspecified damages to the customers of HP LaserJet (HP InkJet printers are not compatible with remote firmware upgrade).

We haven’t heard anything from HP on the alleged lawsuit.