What work has a printer Canon PIXMA with the game Doom? In 1993, the shooter Doom was a pretty groundbreaking game. In 2014, the same game is used by ethical hackers to prove their existence vulnerable points various online devices.
During his speech at the 44Con conference in London, Michael Jordon from Context Information Security demonstrated that he could easily break the printer Canon PIXMA - popular for homes and small businesses - making him run Doom.
Hacking the machine was not trivial, as Jordon discovered that the device has a web interface that does not need name user or password accesss.
The web interface is used by the printer to indicate the ink level and print status. But it soon became apparent that a hacker could use it to update the machine firmware - the code that is essentially the heart and soul of the printer.
Continuing he could change the printer settings to make the machine ask for updates from one malicious server instead of her official channel Canon.
Jordon took advantage of what the company described as "awesome" encryption that protects the firmware to add some tweaks to the code, allowing it to control the machine remotely.
A malicious hacker could find out what documents the printer was printing, or start running commands to use system resources. If the machine belonged to a business, it could have access to its network.
Jordon the Doom game at the hackers conference, 44Con to make his presentation more interesting. Graphics may have been a bit weird, but the game runs without a doubt on Canon PIXMA.
"If you can run Doom on a printer, you can do a lot more nasty things," Jordon told the Guardian. "In a corporate environment, who suspects printers?"
