- Departments often do not collaborate when purchasing new printers, risking buying erroneous equipment
- They are not legs in time or quite – leaving the doors wide open
- Decaling office equipment is also a problem
Pirates could use your sales printer as an easy background door in your business network and all the devices connected to it, experts warned.
A new report by HP Wolf Security describes how most companies neglect their printers throughout the device life cycle, finding only a third (36%) of those questioned apply firmware updates as soon as they are available.
The firmware updates are vital because they often treat newly discovered vulnerabilities, and if they are not applied, cybercriminals do not have to blindly seek defects – they know exactly where and how to strike and move.
Four steps (from the apocalypse printer)
But the firmware update problems are just during the current management phase, as the report notes a life cycle of a four -step printer, including supplier selection and integration, sanitation and downgrading and second life.
During all these stages, printers are exposed at different risks, including the lack of collaboration on supply, DPS without control and the inability to check the integrity of the printer.
The report also revealed that most companies consider data security as an obstacle to reuse, resale or recycling of the printer, and only a third (35%) said they were not sure if printers can be erased and safe.
At the same time, a quarter thinks that it is necessary to physically destroy printers storage training, while a tenth insists to destroy both the device and its storage players.
“Printers are no longer only harmless desktop devices – they are intelligent and connected devices storing sensitive data,” warns Steve Inch, a global senior private safety strategist at HP Inc.
“With multi -year refresh cycles, unsecured printers create long -term vulnerabilities. If they are compromised, attackers can collect confidential information for extortion or sale. The wrong choice can leave blind organizations with micrologists, falsification or intrusions, effectively presenting the welcome carpet for attackers to access the wider network. ”
