Has anyone used this site?

[SUP]

@DwightT, I'm afraid I have to disagree. We are techies too, for over 4 decades, continuously from development to QA. So have some knowledge.

Several people I know agree with me as well, that this is possible and several have experienced it. Personal experience trumps theory, I believe!  Sorry no offense intended but so many here say that people tell them it is not possible while we know it is and and have experienced it!

I did not bother to try to get my printer repaired because it was an old one but if I had, I would have probably been told the same thing that @fredk was told, that it is possible and the same action would have been taken, of uninstalling and re-installing the printer drivers, after a complete, in-depth virus check.

FYI for all, pdf files are considered to be some of the most vulnerable for attaching hidden malware. The creator of the pdf document might not even intend to infect other computers but if the sender's computer is compromised in any way, then unbeknownst to the sender, malware could get attached and sent. 

There are so many ways to infect and spread viruses and new ones are coming up each day. People saying it is not possible is the same as scientists saying  in 2007 that  "sea levels will not go up more than 1 inch by 2050 and there is no real danger due to global warming until at least the  late part of this century!!" 

@DwightT, I respect your experience but remember, there are plenty of printer companies and thousands of hackers with the singular aim of  bypassing security, many of them school children who want to be 'discovered'. Personal experience from a boy in my daughter's school. 

As far as I am concerned, I  have always been and always will be wary of any downloads, even from reputable sites. Better safe than sorry.

 

[DwightT]

I didn't say that it wasn't possible.  I said that on newer printers from the company that I worked for, it would be highly unlikely.  I explicitly said that I can't speak for older printers or for printers from other manufacturers.  Vulnerabilities that existed in older printers are actually the reason why I spent several years with the team that was working on hardening our printers to prevent those exploits.  Even now though we don't say that it would be absolutely impossible to hack into the printer's firmware.  But it would be extremely difficult and highly unlikely.

Hacking into a printer driver (the code that runs on the user's PC to format a job for the printer) is another matter.  That code is somewhat at the mercy of the host OS when it comes to security so depending on the OS it could be easier to corrupt a driver.  I only worked on the printer FW though, so I really can't say much about that.

It's always good to be wary of downloads from any site.  But as far as a download print file being able to corrupt the FW on a newer printer with up-to-date code, I'm not going to be too concerned.

    /dwight