Printers are a bomb business for manufacturers. However, the high sales have little to do with the sale of relatively cheap hardware and a lot to do with the sale of overpriced consumables, such as ink cartridges or color cartridges (for laser printers).
In an interview with the American broadcaster CNBC, the head of the well-known printer manufacturer HP (formerly: Hewlett-Packard), Enrique Lores, recently admitted business practices that target his own customers.
The interview was about general trends for the computer market and how it is developing after the boom in the corona pandemic, as summarized by the Austrian daily “Der Standard”. However, when the moderator asked the HP boss about a class action lawsuit in the US filed against HP over the artificial restrictions on its printers, he openly admitted that the company did everything it could to avoid using cheap ink . from external suppliers.
The security risk created by HP
To justify the requirement to use original ink, HP itself even came up with a scenario in which ink cartridges with chips were presented as a potential security risk, notes “Der Standard”.
And in the interview, the HP boss essentially reiterated the idea that malware could enter and spread into a company’s network via tampered printer cartridges.
The report recalls that in 2022, an IT security researcher demonstrated how an HP printer could be hacked using a tampered ink cartridge. Mind you, research that HP itself had supported.
Since then, HP has used the “research results” as an argument to support that only genuine cartridges should be used. The American company has even updated the firmware of its printers to prevent the use of non-HP cartridges.
There could be a simple solution…
HP has significantly changed its business strategy in recent years and has since focused on establishing subscription models, the report said. This does not only apply to printers, but, as the HP boss revealed on camera, should be extended in the future to “PCs and the rest of the products we manufacture”.
The statements in the video
And now you!
Which printer manufacturer do you trust and what do you think about buying ink cartridges? Or do you (also) use a laser printer privately? And how do you keep the associated costs under control?
Write to us via the comment function.
From May 2023, mailboxes of cybersecurity professionals were attacked, the company said in a report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The revelation came days after Microsoft linked the same threat actor to the breach of its corporate systems in late November 2023.
Sources
- derstandard.de: HP boss openly admits he disabled his own printers (January 24)
- thehackernews.com: Tech giant HP Enterprise hacked by Russian hackers linked to DNC breach (January 25)
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Source: Watson
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
