DDoS Flaw Found in Brother Printers

A vulnerability discovered in the Debut embedded Web front-end in all Brother printer models could allow attackers to launch a DDoS attack against the printers, according to research released today by Trustwave.

The Debut bug can be exploited via a single malformed HTTP POST request, which then returns a 500 error code. That makes the Web server inaccessible and ceases all printing functions.

There is no apparent patch for the bug, despite Trustwave's repeated attempts to contact the company, according to Trustwave's blog post. System administrators are advised to restrict access control using a firewall or similar device to limit Web access only to administrators that need it to mitigate the threat.

The DDoS cybercriminals could potentially leverage the attack to present a faux technician, who would "fix" the problem while also gaining direct physical access to IT resources.

Read more about the Brother bug here.

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