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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Whether or not it happened at UCLA (still unclear), there is a simple fix

We noted yesterday that although one article indicated that UCLA's printers had been hacked, it remains unclear if that happened. (Other articles listed various universities but did not mention UCLA.) Nonetheless, Inside Higher Ed today published a simple fix.

Last week’s flood of anti-Semitic fliers printed at colleges across the U.S. is a “wake-up call” to college and university IT security offices about the risk that Internet-connected devices pose to their networks, experts say.
Just days before Easter weekend, printers at a large number of colleges and universities began spitting out fliers accusing Jews of “destroying your country through mass immigration and degeneracy” and pointing readers to The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. Many institutions immediately began investigating if their networks had been hacked...
(The culprit for the flyers) explained that he specifically looked for printers with port 9100 open. Network printers use that port to accept remote print requests. To prevent outsiders from using their printers, some universities block the port...
So now whoever has to know how to fix the problem does know.

UPDATE: Berkeley apparently did receive the flyers. See:
http://www.dailycal.org/2016/03/28/campus-printers-hacked-programmed-print-anti-semitic-fliers-friday-saturday/

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