Your Office Printer Just Became a Crypto Heist Weapon—Here’s How

Security researchers just uncovered a chilling exploit—ordinary printers can be hijacked to steal cryptocurrency wallet credentials. No fancy hardware required.

How it works: Malicious print jobs execute code that scans connected devices for wallet files, exfiltrating keys before you can say ’hardware wallet.’

The irony? Banks still reject crypto as ’too risky’ while their own thermal printers sit there like digital pickpockets. Maybe audit your office appliances before your next ledger update.

How does the exploit work?

Cases of hidden malware exploits, like the one highlighted by MistTrack, occur as a result of attackers distributing malicious code through programs that need to be installed into the user’s hardware, such as a laptop, computer or mobile device. In this case, the attacker inserted the backdoor program through a printer driver that appears legitimate.

Once installed, the driver monitors the user’s clipboard—the temporary storage area where copied data is held— in search of a cryptocurrency wallet addresses. If the user copies what appears to be a crypto wallet address in order to send funds, the malware instead replaces it with the attacker’s crypto wallet address.

When the user pastes what it believes to be the original crypto wallet address from the clipboard and they fail to notice the hijacked change, the funds are then sent to the attacker’s wallet instead of the intended recipient.

A similar exploit was highlighted by CyberArk back in March 2025, which involved a malware called MassJacker. The malware enabled the attacker to access the user’s clipboard to alter the original crypto wallet address and redirect cryptocurrency transactions to attacker-controlled wallets, effectively stealing funds from the victim’s wallet.

Unlike the printer driver exploit, MassJacker used more than 750,000 unique addresses instead of a recurring one. The malware was able to infiltrate user’s hardware through pirated and cracked software downloaded from unofficial websites.