A report commissioned by HP Inc found that 64 percent of IT manager believe printers “are likely infected with malware”.
The investigation, undertaken by market researchers Ponemon Institute, and reported on by Information Age, highlighted whether office printers were “a security liability” based on workplace interviews, with the OEM noting that “businesses need to be aware of the insecurity of network-connected printers as an overlooked risk”. Many users “don’t think of printers as similarly fallible” as PCs, with 2,000 IT professionals from North America, the EMEA, Latin America and Asia Pacific surveyed.
Only 44 percent of these said that their business’ security policy included networked printers, and 56 percent “ignore printers in their endpoint security strategy”, despite the 64 percent who believe printers are “likely infected with malware”. Risks of unsecured printers include “virtually limitless” numbers of hackers being able to access company networks, sending “bizarre print jobs” or launching denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on a network.
The report also found that 57 percent of respondents “predicted a data breach resulting from insecure network-connected printers in the next 12 months”, while the risk of printer security is “expected to increase” because of mobile technology growing in use. 70 percent however felt that “technologies that help pinpoint high-risk printers” are “critical” to security at their companies, though only 30 percent said their organisations had a process for identifying such machines.
Ways to avoid security risks including securing printers with PINs or user identification, data encryption and “people management”, consisting of training and awareness around “sensitive and confidential information”. HP Inc previously released a new range of Enterprise machines with enhanced Sure Start technology for increased printer security.