September 2017 Newsletter - Printer Security
Published on September 1, 2017
Is Your Printer Putting You At Risk?
Most people don't think of their printer as being a danger to their security, but surprisingly it can be if it's not properly secured. Any printer has input and output communication ports and operates using software applications, network drivers, and communication protocols. So all of them are, in theory, hackable. The only way to guarantee that your printer cannot be compromised is to leave it turned off - safe, but not very useful. So what would a hacker gain from getting access to your printer? Free printing? As irritating and possibly costly as that could be, it would really be the best case scenario. There may be greater cause for concern if the hacker can access the documents that you’re printing. Have you ever printed, scanned or copied a document with sensitive information on it like client info or banking? Most of us have and we really don't want other people getting their hands on that information. Some other potential attacks that could be launched on your printer would be to use the printer to transmit faxes, change its LCD readout, change its settings, launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks to lock it up, or retrieve saved copies of documents. It's pretty clear that printer security is important - so how do make sure your printer is secure?- Install a reliable firewall
- Tweak your network settings to restrict your printer, and the network as a whole, to communicate only through the intended ports and to connect only to trusted hosts and networks.
- Update the firmware on a regular basis
- Regularly clear the device’s hard drive, especially when throwing it away or returning it at the end of a lease
- Use strong network encryption
- Change the default administrator name and password
- Ensure that the wi-fi network is protected with WPA2