HP has made a concerted effort to ensure its printer hardware is hardened against possible attacks. Hardware and software inside the printer, according to Albright, are designed to detect the common methods malware uses to take over devices.
“We’re looking at outgoing packets to see if the device has potentially been breached in some way by a hacker, and then we can reboot the device,” she says.
Albright also describes a routine HP calls intrusion runtime detection.
“The printer is scanning memory for any anomalies because the signature of the code has changed. Then we go through a reboot,” she says.
Fighting Network Vulnerabilities Created by Third-Party Toner
HP soon realized that when they integrated microprocessors into their ink and toner cartridges, which report supply levels and page counts to drivers and management software, they had introduced another possible entry point for attackers. Around 2005, they made sure that the chips could not be modified.
“We recognized right away that when you put a microprocessor on a cartridge and insert that into the device, it needs to be locked down,” says Steve Daniels, HP’s marketing manager for security.