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vulnerabilities of postscript printers



During one of our security reviews the following situation was uncovered. What are your thoughts?

Suppose a postscript printer has multiple interfaces connected to different networks, is there a way to leverage PostScript to create a vulnerability such as.

1. Allow an attacker log in to the printer and then gain access to the other network? 2. Create a postscipt program to send copies of printouts to one of the interfaces? 3. What if one of the interfaces is a JetDirect connected via a parallel port?

It has been suggested that PostScript is very powerful and can be used to accomplish a number of general purpose computing tasks including copying data from one port to another and examining memory. Since the parallel interface is bidirectional what is keeping data from being send from the printer to the network, breaching security.

My preliminary web searches do not reveal much in the way of postscript printer vulnerabilities.

Thanks
Bob