Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed multiple security flaws affecting 150 different multifunction printers from HP Inc that could be potentially abused by an adversary to take control of vulnerable devices, pilfer sensitive information, and infiltrate enterprise networks to mount other attacks.
“An attacker can exploit them to gain code execution rights, with the former requiring physical access while the latter can be accomplished remotely. A successful attack will allow an adversary to achieve various objectives, including stealing information or using the compromised machine as a beachhead for future attacks against an organization.”
A hypothetical attack scenario could involve embedding an exploit for the font-parsing flaws in a malicious PDF document and then social engineering the target into printing the file.
An employee from the victim organization could be lured into visiting a rogue website, in the process sending the exploit to the vulnerable MFP directly from the web browser in what’s known as a cross-site printing attack.
“The website would, automatically, remotely print a document containing a maliciously-crafted font on the vulnerable MFP, giving the attacker code execution rights on the device,” the researchers said.
“While exploiting these issues is somewhat difficult, the public disclosure of these vulnerabilities will help threat actors know what to look for to attack vulnerable organizations,” Hirvonen and Bolshev said.
