Did you know that your office printers can leave you vulnerable to attack? When companies are securing their business systems, printers are sometimes overlooked, making them an easy target for cyber-criminals and hackers.
Vulnerability and Chaos
Today’s multi-function printers are more like computers—high-tech machines with a hard drive and operating system, networked through your office. Even if that network is secured, if your printers are susceptible, they present a back-door opportunity for hackers to exploit your systems.
Vulnerable printers allow access to your network—by exploiting this point of entry, criminals can install malware on your printer allowing to access your secure data. Once they have control of your printer, they can create huge headaches and a wide range of trouble for you.
Securing All Systems
Since the many benefits of using multi-functional printers as part of your business systems outweigh the security concerns, proper security is the best defense for your data. It is critical that you secure your entire network, including all of your printers. Here are some tips to securing your business systems from hackers.
- Encryption
Encryption will secure all of the data written to your hard drives and protect your sensitive documents when printing or scanning. It can also ensure that all of the information is removed from the printer when you are finished with it.
- Access Control
Password protection and user access controls allow printer usages oversight and can limit the number of employees using and accessing particular devices.
- Network Protection
Make sure all of your printers have proper access controls in place that limit access to particular computers on the network. You should also be able to enable or disable any protocol or service port on devices.
Hilyard’s has been managing and securing your business systems for more than 50 years. We stay on top of the latest technology updates so that you don’t have to worry. Contact us today to learn more about how to protect your data.
