Brother / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
Hundreds of Brother printer models have been found to harbor a serious security flaw that can't be fully patched on existing devices. First noticed by Rapid7 in May and publicly disclosed on June 25, this unpatchable vulnerability lets an attacker who knows -- or can find out -- your printer's serial number generate its default administrator password.
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Yes, the same password that's set in the factory and that many of us never change. But the "good" news is you can still protect yourself by changing that default password today.
What happened and how bad is it?
Rapid7's zero-day research has revealed eight security holes across 689 Brother printer, scanner, and label-maker models -- and an additional 59 devices from Fujifilm, Toshiba Tec, Ricoh, and Konica Minolta. Of those eight flaws, seven can be fully patched with firmware updates. But the big one -- CVE-2024-51978 -- can't be fixed on any device already sitting in your home or office.
CVE-2024-51978 carries a CVSS score of 9.8 "Critical" severity. Once an attacker knows a device's serial number, they can reconstruct the password, log in with full privileges, and launch all sorts of nastiness.
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According to a detailed technical analysis by Rapid7, Brother uses a password generation algorithm during manufacturing that is easily reversible. An attacker who leaks your serial number (for example via CVE-2024-51977) can reverse this process, recover your factory password, and log in with full privileges -- allowing them to reconfigure the device, access scans and address books, trigger remote code execution (CVE-2024-51979), or steal external-service credentials (CVE-2024-51984).
How many devices are susceptible?
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