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Are You Practicing Endpoint Security?

I’ve raised the issue of document security at the printer or MFP-device level a number of times. There have been some notorious cases out there where security was breached thanks to a wayward hard drive left in an office printer. Sometimes, it’s easy to overlook such details.
Written by Doc , Contributor

I’ve raised the issue of document security at the printer or MFP-device level a number of times. There have been some notorious cases out there where security was breached thanks to a wayward hard drive left in an office printer. Sometimes, it’s easy to overlook such details.

But document security doesn’t stop at the hard drive. For a truly effective security program, you have to think end-to-end. For a good read on endpoint security practices, check out this article by Louella Fernandes of Quocirca.  She covers things like user authentication, third-party products for security, and the idea of a unified approach across all devices.

Most firms understand that securing network endpoints against the risk of accidental or deliberate security breaches is important. But while most companies have antivirus software, firewalls, email and web-content security to protect against external threats, few realize that unsecured networked printers and multifunction peripherals can expose holes in their information security coverage.

Points of printer vulnerability include documents left in output trays and data left on internal hard drives.

The recent data breach at the City of York council over sensitive information being distributed after being inadvertently collected from a shared printer highlights the security vulnerabilities inherent in the use of shared printers.

The move to shared printers is often the result of device consolidation performed under a managed print services contract, which aims to reduce the spiraling costs of an unmanaged printer estate by replacing desktop and personal printers with advanced multifunction peripherals.

Such devices often operate as sophisticated document-processing hubs with capabilities to scan to email or file destinations, as well as holding copies of documents sent for printing on local hard disk drives in addition to the standard functions of print, copy and fax.

Of course there’s a whole lot more, and Louella does a great job running down the issues of endpoint security.

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