They use the small flash inside the DRM chip in the cartridge to store the telemetry, then the e-waste companies are paid by HP to read and send to the mothership the contents of the chips sent to recycle
They use the small flash inside the DRM chip in the cartridge to store the telemetry, then the e-waste companies are paid by HP to read and send to the mothership the contents of the chips sent to recycle
According to the page, this is the data that is stored on the chip:
=== CUT === In addition, this memory chip collects a limited set of information about the usage of the product, which might include the following: The date when the toner cartridge was first installed The date when the toner cartridge was last used The number of pages printed using the toner cartridge Page coverage Printing modes used Any printing errors that might have occurred The product model === CUT ===
I don’t like that they collect this info, but I don’t see any really scary information mentioned there?
Whether I trust HP that is all they store and recover is an entirely other matter ;)
Isn’t the point that a hacker can use that memory to export other data?
You’d first need to get the flash to store other data, requiring malicious firmware modifications.
Like, its not impossible but I really can’t see anything nefarious happening to make airgapped printer that would be that big a deal.
Lets say a malicious actor infiltrates the supply chain and loads custom firmware on the device. Somehow the malicious firmware avoids detection, and is installed in a secured environment.
What can be exfiltrated in the flash is probably pretty limited, but top 5 usernames and their top 5 IP-addresses, perhaps as many jobtitles as can be stored correlated to the above information. And now the attacker can extrapolate all sorts of classified information.
ok what if they just installed a 4G transmitter. Would be way less work and a higher success rate for retrieving anything
And easy to catch in an environment so secure that airgapping is necessary and supply chain infiltration is worthwhile
I don’t quite follow your thought?