Hacker attacks 50,000 printers, sends a message asking people to subscribe to PewDiePie

In the past week, Twitter users in the US, Canada and the UK have repeatedly reflected on their printers automatically printing a strange message, asking people to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel.

A user named TheHackerGiraffe claimed responsibility for this attack and said that this message was a way he used to inform users that their device was hacked by a single trick. It is easy to receive data over the Internet and print jobs remotely.

Hacker attacks 50,000 printers, sends a message asking people to subscribe to PewDiePie Picture 1

TheHackerGiraffe used a search engine for unsecured Internet-connected devices called Shodan.io to search for target printers. He said that as many as 80,000 printers could be exploited but only sent messages to 50,000 printers.

The message of TheHackerGiraffe is transmitted through a tool called Printer Exploitation Toolkit - PRET, a tool that allows an attacker to perform actions such as accessing the file system and printer memory, manipulating with print jobs even causes hardware failure.

In its message, TheHackerGiraffe also provides the script used and the ports needed to perform the exploit.

Hacker attacks 50,000 printers, sends a message asking people to subscribe to PewDiePie Picture 2

The explanation of asking people to subsribe PewDiePie in the message, TheHackerGiraffe said, instead of printing a scary word "YOU HAVE HACKED", he wanted to send a softer message to everyone. And as a big fan of PewDiePie, he thought of that message and hoped it would help PewDiePie to keep his number one position.

If your printer automatically prints the above message, you should probably update your device firmware.

See more:

1. Hackers successfully compromised data on iPhone X running iOS 12.1 to recover deleted photos, receive 1.2 billion VND
2. Just released iOS 12 has been successfully hacked by Chinese hackers on the iPhone Xs
3. Good hackers find and patch the vulnerability for more than 100,000 other routers