PaperCut Gets Its Arse Handed to It in Zero-Day Clusterfuck
Right then, here’s the short version for those too busy rebooting print servers and pretending patch management is a “next quarter” problem. PaperCut has warned that a vulnerability in its NG and MF print management software is being actively exploited as a zero-day, which is corporate-speak for “the bad guys are already inside and you useless bastards are late.”
The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-27350, is a critical remote code execution bug. In plain English: if your PaperCut server is exposed and unpatched, some random shithead on the internet may be able to waltz in and run whatever they damn well please. There’s also mention of another bug, CVE-2023-27351, which can allow information disclosure, because apparently one catastrophic screw-up wasn’t enough.
PaperCut says the attacks are real, active, and not theoretical. Not “could be exploited,” not “might be a concern,” but actually being abused in the wild by people who understand that admins often treat print infrastructure like the mouldy cupboard under the stairs: ignored until it starts stinking up the whole building.
The company urged customers to update to patched versions immediately. That means PaperCut MF and NG version 20.1.7, 21.2.11, and 22.0.9 or later, depending on your branch. If you’re sitting there thinking, “We’ll schedule downtime after the change advisory board has had a biscuit and a cry,” then congratulations, you’re exactly how incidents become headlines.
The article also notes that defenders should lock down server access, check for suspicious activity, and assume that if the box was exposed, it may already be compromised. You know, the usual fun: logs, indicators of compromise, containment, panic, denial, blame, and a hasty email saying security is everyone’s responsibility.
The real lesson here is the same bloody lesson it always is: patch your internet-facing systems before some feral little gremlin does it for you with ransomware, cryptominers, or whatever fresh hell is trending this week. Print servers may be boring, but boring infrastructure can still set your network on fire just fine.
I remember one idiot manager who said, “It’s only the print server, what’s the worst that could happen?” Three days later the whole office was locked out, printers were spewing gibberish, and he was asking if we had backups like a man discovering gravity. We did, of course. I restored them slowly, because I’m not a charity.
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