Printer Virus

I'm not aware of any "printer virus" as such. There were reports in the mid 90's regarding a printer showing up as "Absolutely Bogus Printer Driver" that was caused by an incomplete printer driver installation of certain HP printers. If this is thecase simply reinstall the drivers making sure that the install completes (usually requires a final reboot if any system files are required to be updated and were in use at the time of installation).

More recently, it has been reported that the bugbear virus occasionally shows up in printer spool areas and if you are on a network and sharing a printer it might be your machine or someone elses. To check, do a complete scan of all machines with one of the tools you can download from any of the major anti-virus companies (or do an online scan by going to one of the anti-virus software vendors like Pandasoftware and run the scan from their website).

I don't believe that there are currently any viruses that can infect or modify/damage yourprinter so if you think you are infected doing a scan and clean should clear up your problems.

Enjoy,

DrBob:>)

The virus to which you refer, although called a "printer virus", is really not that much different than any other type of virus, as it resides on the computer, not "in" the printer. A virus is, more or less, a program designed to do "something", such as send copies of itself to people in an address book, delete files from a hard drive, or, in this case, send print commands to a printer. What a printer virus will do is send unexpected "junk" printing, particularly at night. Typically, many sheets are printed out with only one line per page.

These are being caused by worm called Adore which is coming in through the Internet. A worm is a program that spreads from computer to computer using known, easily exploitable bugs in computer operating systems. Once the worm gets in, it copies itself and attacks other computers in an effort to spread. Worms are similar to viruses, in that they spread automatically from one computer to the next. Adore is one of a new class of virus that attacks printers. They are largely automated attempts of the virus to spread, but the virus is not intelligent enough to tell the difference between a printer and a computer. There is no risk to the printer from the current attack, other than wasted paper.
To detect and eradicate this worm, any of the current anti-virus programs should work fine - IF the virus definitions are current.

More information about the Adore worm is listed under "Security Alerts" at:

http://www.fsecure.com/

REMOVE SPACES from the pasted URL

No printer viruses. Most printers have a specific (read as proprietary) logic board and re-writting these I think would be next to impossible. Those few manufacturers that do provide a way to upgrade the firmware, usually have you swap out a chip.

What is your printer doing? If it's printing garbage, then look for proper drivers for your OS and your printer driver. If you are sure that these are correct and you've tried swapping printers and the second printer works correctly on the computer, then the logic board on the printer may have gone bad. If it does not work properly with any printer, then I'd uninstall the printer drivers completely, reboot, and reinstall.

Have you had power failures or brownouts? Is this an older model printer?

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