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Can a virus infect a printer?

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  • Can a virus infect a printer?

    Can a virus take control over a printer?
    People I know had problems with their printer: it started printing random documents from their PC at random times.
    So far.... I'd say, OK, it's a virus; and indeed their PC was infected with a virus but now it's been removed with Norton AV. However, the printing mystery remains but - and now it comes - it also starts printing WHEN THE PC IS OFF!!!

    Is it technically possible to write code that remains active in the printer's memory and start printing at random???
    KT7 Turbo Ltd. Ed. ; Athlon XP 1600+ @ 1470 MHz (140*10.5); 512MB Apacer SDRAM ; G400 MAX ; Iiyama VM Pro410

  • #2
    Umm... no?

    This is my semi-qualified answer, after several years of experience coding for printers and printer BIOSes.

    Trust me.

    What is it printing? Just garbage... or documents?

    - Gurm
    The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

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    If only life were as easy as you
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    • #3
      It's printing random documents from the PC, not garbage.....
      KT7 Turbo Ltd. Ed. ; Athlon XP 1600+ @ 1470 MHz (140*10.5); 512MB Apacer SDRAM ; G400 MAX ; Iiyama VM Pro410

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      • #4
        Spooky....

        Tried to disconect the printer cable?

        Jokes aside, If its a Laserwriter with a big buffer souch things could happen theoreticaly......

        IE i'ts just printing out its internal dokument que.....
        If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

        Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Gurm
          Umm... no?

          This is my semi-qualified answer, after several years of experience coding for printers and printer BIOSes.

          Trust me.

          What is it printing? Just garbage... or documents?

          - Gurm
          But they can infect the printer nics on old hps!
          According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless...

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          • #6
            Yeah, I was just going to say that. If it's a network printer, strange things have been known to happen.

            Actually, I don't know if you can infect those HP machines. I think it was just a telnet vulnerability.
            Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

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            • #7
              It's not a network printer, but it IS a HP640...
              KT7 Turbo Ltd. Ed. ; Athlon XP 1600+ @ 1470 MHz (140*10.5); 512MB Apacer SDRAM ; G400 MAX ; Iiyama VM Pro410

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              • #8
                There was some strange talk during the gulf war that the CIA were trying to remotely program some of Saddams printers!! Not sure why they would want to and cant vouch for it authenticity or feasibility.
                Interests include:
                Computing, Reading, Pubs, Restuarants, Pubs, Curries, More Pubs and more Curries

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