Fax Security Alert: One Picture Worth 1000 Hacks

Security researchers have found a way to remotely execute code on a fax machine by sending a specially crafted document to it. So… who cares about fax? Well apparently a lot of persons are still using it in many institutions, governments and industries, including the healthcare industry, legal, banking and commercial. Bureaucracy and old procedures tend to die hard.

"Our research set out to ask what would happen if an attacker, with merely a phone line at his disposal and equipped with nothing more than his target`s fax number, was able to attack an all-in-one printer by sending a malicious fax to it.

In fact, we found several critical vulnerabilities in all-in-one printers which allowed us to ‘faxploit’ the all-in-one printer and take complete control over it by sending a maliciously crafted fax." more

 

Spy Project Corporate Espionage Case Settles Out Of Court

CO - Paragon Dynamics Inc., an Aurora defense contractor, is paying $1.15 million to settle allegations it stole bid information from Raytheon Corp. about spy agency projects over which the companies competed in 2009... 

Around July 31, 2009, an unidentified senior software director for Paragon used computer access to Raytheon’s systems in Aurora to obtain Raytheon’s bids for two NRO projects — code named Antietam and Savannah — plus other information, the settlement agreement says.

Security cameras caught the employee faxing some of the information to the president of Paragon Dynamics, who forwarded it to someone at a company Paragon partnered with to compete against Raytheon for the NRO’s Antietam contract, the government said. (more)

Fax Spy Caves

Australia - A former state Labor MP, accused of spying on a Liberal opponent, has quit her taxpayer-funded job and been criticised by the Ombudsman for "highly inappropriate" behaviour.

Heather McTaggart, who was Labor MP for Evelyn until losing her seat at last year's election, confessed to receiving electronic copies of all faxes sent to her successor, Liberal MP Christine Fyffe, for seven months.

She said she deleted any remaining faxes after reading a copy of the anonymous note alerting Ms Fyffe to the fact that Ms McTaggart was receiving her faxes: "I just deleted everything. I panicked and deleted it. That was it. Whatever was there …"(more)