A smartphone mounted on a drone has been used to trick nearby wirelessly-connected computers that it is a printer, with documents being sent to the device’s cloud rather than being printed.
Researchers in Singapore found that the smartphone could steal data by intercepting computer signals sent to wireless printer, even from outside an office building, CNBC reported. They used two apps in the experiment: one was a conventional cybersecurity app that searches for unsecured wireless connections, and the second allowed the phone to appear as a printer to nearby computers.
The drone had a wireless range radius of 26 metres, although hardware modifications could extend this. The news comes after HP recently released LaserJet printers with enhanced security, though the printers hacked in the video were not mentioned to have come from any specific OEM.