50K Printers Hacked by YouTube Fan

Now for some lighthearted hacking news. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a bored hacker forced 50,000 printers to print flyers promoting Youtube star “PewDiePie.” Yes, you read that right. The hacker, aka “TheHackerGiraffe,” explained that, in a fit of boredom after playing video games for 4 hours straight, decided he was in the mood for hacking. He used the IoT search engine Shodan to locate vulnerable printers, and then used a tool called the Printer Exploitation Toolkit to print the flyers. TheHackerGiraffe pointed out that he could have damaged the printers or accessed their internal networks, but he just wanted to spread awareness of insecure systems. In the end, this was sort of a win-win. Or at least a win for PewDiePie and a win for printer vulnerability awareness. You’re welcome internet.