YouTuber PewDiePie currently has the most subscribers of any channel on the platform but his lead is increasingly coming under threat by T-Series, an Indian music label. His fans are going to great lengths to ensure that PewDiePie’s lead remains. Some even hacked printers worldwide to urge people to subscribe to this channel. It appears that the printer hackers have struck again.
People hacking these printers are basically using an open network port that can be found on countless printers across the globe that are capable of printing wirelessly. They take advantage of this vulnerability and send messages of support for PewDiePie to unsuspecting people worldwide.
The latest episode of printer hacking once again calls on people to subscribe to his channel. It also points out to the victims that they should fix their printer security. “We really want people to pay attention to this because causing physical damage is very much a possibility,” the original hacker tells the BBC. He added that this flaw can allow attackers to continuously force data to be written on a printer’s chip. Since these chips have a limited lifetime of writes, if the loop is kept on for long enough, it will fry the chip and basically destroy the printer.
The hacker also mentions that the vulnerability could be used to capture sensitive documents as they’re printed or even to modify documents while they’re printing. The hacker is able to geo-locate the countries where affected printers are printing out these messages, it’s unclear if this attack can be targeted down to the individual level.
It’s claimed that the message of support has now been printed out on more than 100,000 machines. Many people from across the globe have posted images of the latest print outs on their social media, but the number itself has not been independently verified.
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