PRINTER SECURITY
avoid unnecessary information being stored or not leaving the printer unattended when duplicating sensitive documents. Step back and take stock The same SOTI study showed that two in five UK businesses lack any form of real-time centralised management and do not know how many printers they have or where they are deployed. Now that we know what is at risk, this is a concerning statistic. IT teams cannot safeguard their organisations if they have limited or no awareness of how many printers they have and whether they need to be managed and secured. It’s a blind spot that also highlights another common issue: businesses often overlook and neglect outdated technologies leaving them vulnerable. To face this problem head on, companies need to step back and take stock. That includes all printers, old and new, so that they can confidently work towards tightening defences and protecting internal and customer data. It may be worth considering a solution that can detect and identify any authorised or unauthorised device connected to the corporate network. Close the gap A preventative approach that regularly encompasses software updates and real-time monitoring will always see an organisation in better stead. By drawing on real-time intelligence, IT and security teams can detect and diffuse a threat before it becomes a wider problem. While SOTI’s report showed there is some awareness around the susceptibility of printers to hacking due to outdated
firmware, many organisations identified a lack of appropriate tools as the roadblock to remotely troubleshooting these problems. And fixing them in-person is time-consuming and costly, especially if in a different location to the IT team. If we look to our work with Rosti, the company’s IT personnel would spend a lot of time travelling from outside the region to address device issues. Since implementing SOTI MobiControl for remote management and support, Rosti has reduced downtime caused by hardware issues by more than four hours per device, per month and has saved on associated travel costs too. Solutions like this can allow IT teams to modernise how they manage their fleets so that patches can be deployed from a distance, making it more convenient to implement protective measures and easier to conduct risk assessments. For example, by helping automate firmware updates so that they are automatically deployed to all devices at the same time, upping protection and alleviating pressure on staff. Improving resiliency It’s well known that cybercriminals will always choose the path of least resistance and if printers continue to be left unprotected, we can expect to see them remain a perfect target. This is why printer management needs to be seen as an integrated part of a robust security architecture, where best practises such as encryption, location tracking and improved employee awareness is essential. As businesses continue to refresh and adapt their cybersecurity strategies to reflect the current threat landscape, it’s essential that they look to safeguard every type of device, including the humble printer.
“
A preventative
approach that regularly encompasses software updates and real-time monitoring will always see an organisation in better stead.
By drawing on real-time
intelligence, IT and security teams can detect and diffuse a threat before it becomes a wider problem.
”
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