Consider the office printer.

Massive, hulking things — the devices looming in the corner of workplaces around the world have come to represent untold hours of frustration in the form of printer jams and toner problems. According to security researchers set to present their findings this Saturday at the DEF CON hacking convention in Las Vegas, they also happen to be a cybersecurity nightmare.

Daniel Romero Pérez and Mario Rivas Vivar, researchers at NCC Group, announced the discovery of major vulnerabilities on Thursday in name-brand printers made by the likes of Xerox, HP, Lexmark, Kyocera, Brother, and Ricoh. NCC Group shared some of the researchers’ findings with Mashable ahead of the aforementioned Aug. 10 talk, and they’re enough to elicit serious double take. Read more…