86,800 network printers open to the whole internet - is one of them yours?
Contributed by: Email on 01/31/2013 08:04 AM [ Comments ]
Naked Security reports that UK blogger @skattyadz, alias Adam Howard, did a Google search for a URL matching the pattern you might use to connect to a nearby printer on your office network.
He reports that he got back "about 86,800 results." (Geeks will notice that's very close to 86,400 - the number of seconds in a day.)
For what it's worth, Howard built up a search term specific to HP printers. If you were to repeat his experiment with other vendors' URLs in the search mix, you'd probably get hundreds of thousands more publicly-visible printers.
Give it a try, or better yet, secure your printer.
HP has responded and provided a link to a PDF document titled HP Imaging and Printing Security Best Practices which we have available in zip format.
For what it's worth, Howard built up a search term specific to HP printers. If you were to repeat his experiment with other vendors' URLs in the search mix, you'd probably get hundreds of thousands more publicly-visible printers.
Give it a try, or better yet, secure your printer.
HP has responded and provided a link to a PDF document titled HP Imaging and Printing Security Best Practices which we have available in zip format.
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