A hacker has bypassed the protection of HP printers using a man-in-the-middle attack. Now you can never buy original cartridges again and use only compatible ones or refill the ones you have. HP has been fighting this for years, trying to tie its customers to its own expensive consumables. But it seems to have lost this battle.
HP has been left in the cold
The protection of HP printers that does not allow the use of refilled or compatible cartridges has been hacked. According to Tom's Hardware, this was done by user Jay Summet by implementing a man-in-the-middle attack.
HP is famous for not allowing owners of its printers to use non-original consumables, and it is even more fighting against those who once bought its original cartridge and then simply refilled them with ink or toner from third-party manufacturers. It resorts to a variety of tricks just to force consumers to buy its original consumables at an inflated price, and one of them is a chip built into the cartridge that counts the number of printed pages.
When a certain limit for which the cartridge is designed is reached, this chip blocks further printing and requires replacement of the consumable. Sammet managed to bypass this protection using an ultra-thin printed circuit board, which looks more like a cable running from the smartphone screen to the system board than a board.
Why all this
HP printers are also trained to detect counter chips in cartridges - if they are not there, printing will not start. But the problem with the chips that HP uses in its cartridges is not so much that they are designed only for a specific number of printed sheets, but that almost always after reaching the limit, there is still some toner or ink left in the cartridge.
In other words, the buyer of the cartridge cannot use up its entire resource, for which, it should be noted, he paid money. This happens because printing, as a rule, is uneven - one sheet can be completely filled with text or images, and the second - only a third, and this is just one of the possible options.
It's all very simple
Sammet's idea was to install a special microcircuit on the cartridge that could intercept the chip signals, not pass them to the printer and instead transmit a preset value. This would make the printer think that very few pages have been printed yet and that the cartridge itself is completely original, and thus not block printing.
Sammet selected the necessary microcircuit, and all that was left was to solve the issue of its placement on the cartridge. The only option for him was to use an ultra-thin, even flexible printed circuit board.
The board is placed on top of the original cartridge ribbon cable - the contacts on it are located in the same place as the original ribbon cable, which further confuses the printer electronics.
A problem for HP
The method for bypassing HP printer protection described by Sammet has not yet become widespread, but it is probably only a matter of time. In recent years, HP has gotten on the nerves of its printer owners by remotely blocking them without warning in response to the use of non-original cartridges.
As a result, many users simply refuse HP products and switch to printers of other brands, which are much more loyal to the use of compatible consumables. Electronic document management is also gaining popularity, which is also not in HP's favor, given its current policy.
In addition, HP has become a frequent guest in court, and as a defendant. It is regularly sued for attempts to impose its products on consumers against their will.
According to research company IDC, HP printer and MFP sales, although not falling, have clearly stalled - by the end of Q2 2024, the company shipped 6.8 million devices, exactly the same as a year earlier. And at the beginning of 2024, sales of its printing equipment fell by 17%.
But despite all its antics towards consumers, HP still manages to maintain its leadership - it has 35.3% of the global printer and MFP market against 34.7% in Q2 2023. Its closest competitor, Canon, fell from 4.1 million printers sold to 3.9 million, and its market share decreased from 21.1% in Q2 2023 to 20.6% a year later.
In total, 19.2 million printers and MFPs were shipped worldwide during the reporting period against 19.5 million a year earlier. This indicates a rapid contraction of the market and a loss of interest and need for printing documents and photographs.
HP has been left in the cold
The protection of HP printers that does not allow the use of refilled or compatible cartridges has been hacked. According to Tom's Hardware, this was done by user Jay Summet by implementing a man-in-the-middle attack.
HP is famous for not allowing owners of its printers to use non-original consumables, and it is even more fighting against those who once bought its original cartridge and then simply refilled them with ink or toner from third-party manufacturers. It resorts to a variety of tricks just to force consumers to buy its original consumables at an inflated price, and one of them is a chip built into the cartridge that counts the number of printed pages.
When a certain limit for which the cartridge is designed is reached, this chip blocks further printing and requires replacement of the consumable. Sammet managed to bypass this protection using an ultra-thin printed circuit board, which looks more like a cable running from the smartphone screen to the system board than a board.
Why all this
HP printers are also trained to detect counter chips in cartridges - if they are not there, printing will not start. But the problem with the chips that HP uses in its cartridges is not so much that they are designed only for a specific number of printed sheets, but that almost always after reaching the limit, there is still some toner or ink left in the cartridge.
In other words, the buyer of the cartridge cannot use up its entire resource, for which, it should be noted, he paid money. This happens because printing, as a rule, is uneven - one sheet can be completely filled with text or images, and the second - only a third, and this is just one of the possible options.
It's all very simple
Sammet's idea was to install a special microcircuit on the cartridge that could intercept the chip signals, not pass them to the printer and instead transmit a preset value. This would make the printer think that very few pages have been printed yet and that the cartridge itself is completely original, and thus not block printing.
Sammet selected the necessary microcircuit, and all that was left was to solve the issue of its placement on the cartridge. The only option for him was to use an ultra-thin, even flexible printed circuit board.
The board is placed on top of the original cartridge ribbon cable - the contacts on it are located in the same place as the original ribbon cable, which further confuses the printer electronics.
A problem for HP
The method for bypassing HP printer protection described by Sammet has not yet become widespread, but it is probably only a matter of time. In recent years, HP has gotten on the nerves of its printer owners by remotely blocking them without warning in response to the use of non-original cartridges.
As a result, many users simply refuse HP products and switch to printers of other brands, which are much more loyal to the use of compatible consumables. Electronic document management is also gaining popularity, which is also not in HP's favor, given its current policy.
In addition, HP has become a frequent guest in court, and as a defendant. It is regularly sued for attempts to impose its products on consumers against their will.
According to research company IDC, HP printer and MFP sales, although not falling, have clearly stalled - by the end of Q2 2024, the company shipped 6.8 million devices, exactly the same as a year earlier. And at the beginning of 2024, sales of its printing equipment fell by 17%.
But despite all its antics towards consumers, HP still manages to maintain its leadership - it has 35.3% of the global printer and MFP market against 34.7% in Q2 2023. Its closest competitor, Canon, fell from 4.1 million printers sold to 3.9 million, and its market share decreased from 21.1% in Q2 2023 to 20.6% a year later.
In total, 19.2 million printers and MFPs were shipped worldwide during the reporting period against 19.5 million a year earlier. This indicates a rapid contraction of the market and a loss of interest and need for printing documents and photographs.
