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Modern printers are computers in themselves, usually running stripped down versions of Linux or some other operating system. It is possible for a printer to be compromised by a virus but unlikely as a printer has a very specific purpose and there’s no need for it to run any code other than what it’s already running. Back in 2000 and 2001, the Microsoft code red worm ran rampant through IT departments and at the same time HP printers would spontaneously start dumping their memory in printouts of thousands of pages. What was happening was that the code red virus was probing IP addresses looking for another vulnerable Windows box and would inadvertently trigger a diagnostic mode memory dump on HP printers, a firmware upgrade of the HP printers solved this problem but few IT departments would make the connection. In theory, had the virus been written to identify the HP printer and attack it accordingly, it could’ve used the printer as a host as well. There are several obstacles for a virus to do that, a printer isn’t designed to run code transferred to it other than perhaps page description code like Postscript (there are postscript viruses), printers often have different processors than PC’s and most hackers aren’t familiar with programming printers. It’s probably the latter that has protected printers the most.

The modern Mac has an operating system based upon FreeBSD which is a version of the venerable Unix OS. Unix has always had the separation between normal user activity and administrator activity. Modern versions of Windows also has this separation but it wasn’t too long ago when all user activity whether administrator or not were the same (Windows 98). Much of the reputation for Mac’s resilience to viruses is attributed to this and indeed this concept has become the first line of defense in all OS’s. Since Windows NT, Microsoft’s OS has been based upon VMS which was the competitor to Unix and hence has been equally resistant along the lines of distinguishing normal user activity from administrator activity but Windows suffered from poor administrative practices for quite some time and continues to do so. The advantage that Mac’s have is that they are not as widely known to the hacking community that would make viruses, have a reputation for being better structured though modern Windows is equally well structured and there are fewer bad administrators of Macs mostly because they are not as common.

It would be possible for a virus to affect all three platforms but the creator of the virus will have to have intentionally programmed it to do so and most hackers can barely hack one platform let alone two general purpose and one dedicated purpose platform. Don’t worry about it too much and remember you can always turn the printer off when not in use.