Resellers that still have fax customers in the health, manufacturing, Government and finance sectors have been warned about a new security attack that could compromise entire corporate networks.
A so-called ‘Faxploit’ enables cyber criminals to send crafted images to an organisation’s fax machine or fax enabled printer.
These contain a code that exploits vulnerabilities, enabling them to take over the machine and from there they can use the fax machine to deploy other hacking tools that scan local networks and compromise nearby devices.
In a demonstration at the DEF CON 26 security conference in Las Vegas, security firm Check Point specifically took advantage of two buffer overflows in the implementation of fax capabilities in a Hewlett Packard device.
And, according to global UC specialist XMedius, because fax machines don’t come with security software to scan inbound faxes and hackers only need an organisation’s fax number to target them, Faxploit can be difficult to defend against.
“Most companies publish their fax numbers in plain sight on their websites, and Google has over 300 million fax numbers indexed, making Faxploit a potentially powerful tool for hackers to be able to target almost any organisation in the world,” said an XMedius spokesperson.
To prevent ‘Faxploitation’, XMedius urges concerned companies to check their suppliers for relevant security patches; break up large corporate infrastructures into smaller networks; isolate fax machines; or use centralised fax server solutions that are easier to protect.