HP Innovation Journal Special Edition: Security | Page 17
S H IVAU N A LB R I G HT
D istin g uish e d Te ch n olo gist , H P
For today’s hackers, the massive profit potential drives
innovation and creativity. Among the greatest threats
are botnets—automated tools built out of thousands
of hacked IoT devices that are used to execute a coor-
dinated attack. To create a botnet, hackers hijack the
processors of unsecured devices, then use these com-
promised devices to mine bitcoin, or they rent their
botnet to others to launch ransom-seeking DDoS
attacks. The Mirai botnet attack in October of 2016,
used as many as 1.2 million compromised devices to
wage a DDoS attack, preventing access to popular web-
sites such as Amazon, Netf lix, and PayPal. The Mirai
malware targeted IoT devices such as DVRs, security
cameras, and printers.
HP’s Printing and Imaging devices have evolved to
become just as sophisticated as PCs containing a power-
ful processor running Windows or Linux, with storage,
displays, scanners, network access, and email capabil-
ities. With the ability to print, copy, scan-to-network
destinations and send-to-email attachments, these print
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