With ransomware being so prevalent, many of our customers are conducting IT Security Audits. And guess what is showing up as a security vulnerability? Label printers, particularly older label printers with Telnet enabled.
Who still uses Telnet? The networking protocol that was developed in the 1960’s to allow remote users to connect to a host computer. No one uses that to connect to their label printers anymore, right?
That is usually correct, but if you have an older label printer that you are still using in your operations, it can have Telnet capabilities, and they can be turned on. The risk is that Telnet passes user name and password information through the network unencrypted.
Below is what the EMP Tech Services team is telling our customers about this situation in regards to Zebra label printers.
Link-OS 6.0 was released in January of 2022, so the possibility of your operations having a Zebra printer where the OS predates version 6.0 is highly likely. Your best option is to update your printer firmware to 6.0 or higher. Or you can send a command to the printer to disable Telnet.
What if your printers are even older than that, maybe they even predate Link-OS. Well, for IT security purposes, you should definitely consider updating your label printers. Not to mention the vast number of improvements that have been made to the Zebra industrial printers over the years. Your operations would benefit from an IT Security and an efficiency perspective.