International Data Corp. (IDC) recently reported that the $2.5-billion 3-D printing market grew by 20% in 2015. IDC also
predicted that education spending on 3-D printing hardware and materials will
increase to more than $500 million by 2019.
That kind of spending could be very attractive to
hackers. New research on 3-D printing security found printing orientation and
insertion of fine defects are areas of concern because of the potential harm to
users caused by deliberately weakened products.
“These are possible foci for attacks that could have
devastating impact on users of the end products, and economic impact in the
form of recalls and lawsuits,” said Nikhil Gupta, an associate professor of
engineer at New Your University and a member of the team that did the research.
Since computer-assisted design files used in the
printing process don’t include printer-head orientation, hackers could change
the process without detection, according to the research. Hacking the
orientation could make as much as a 25% difference in the strength of a product.
Hackers
could also attack printers connected to the Internet, adding internal defects
into products as they are being printed. The researchers were able to introduce
submillimeter defects, which could weaken the product, that couldn’t be
detected using normal monitoring methods.