Imagine there was someone in your office who:

• Had embarrassing photographic quality evidence of your Christmas Party antics, 
• Detailed breakdowns of your personal and business financial position (from Bank Statements and Credit Card bills to 5 year forecasts and detailed Audit reports, year in, year out).
• Full details of all legal agreements entered into, plus changes.
• Detailed knowledge of all your clients, suppliers and competitors including copies of all communication sent by mail or fax.
• Detailed information on all of your staff, including their Addresses, Evaluations and Salary information.

Say "hello" to your New Security issue, Who, in all probability: 

• I have seen in every office I have been in since 2000.
• Will walk out of your office, sometime in the next 3 years, taking all this information with them in digital form.
• Is overlooked when it comes to security audits and user access.
• Will leave you legally responsible.

The culprit: The Office Networked Printer/Fax/Scanner/Photocopier, the essential key in all offices and work-groups. Allowing you to print, copy, scan, fax, and digitally send information using a reliable, cost-effective device but to do this it has a hard drive!

Canon warns of digital printer security issue

17 June 2010

You wouldn't class digital printers as being a security risk but, according to Quentyn Taylor, director of information security with Canon, high-end multi-functional printers pose a serious security risk when they come to the end of their working lifetime.

The problem, he says, stems from the fact that all data scanned, processed, printed or similarly manipulated on a high-end printer  system is spooled and stored on the machine's hard disk.

On a high-end digital printer , the scanned images are stored in an unencryted format - and when the unit is disposed of by its first owner, anyone in the know can extract this data and generate thousands of images that have been processed and printed on the unit.

"People don't realise that most office [high-end] printers are actually a server. I always ask my audiences at conferences whether they know this and a good 40 per cent say they don't", said Taylor.

The security problem is made worse by the fact that most high-end printers are usually commissioned by facilities managment teams in most major companies, rather than the IT department, he says. "It's a bit like the old phone systems of the 1970s. FM teams installed them back then, but now we have VOIP, there's a security issue that needs to be addressed. It's the same with high-end printers", he explained............

About Calm Response.

A North West UK consultancy providing IT, Cloud, SaaS, IT Managed Services, Storage and Business Continuity Solutions for Business.