With all of the technology that you have in your office, you might think that your printer is the least of your concern when it comes to security. We’re here to tell you that you’re not actually correct and that you might be making a huge mistake. Unprotected printers can easily give hackers access. Because of this fact that isn’t very well known, we’re dedicating this week’s tip to helping you learn about your printer security solutions.
Understanding the Threats to Your Printer
Surprisingly, there are more than one ways that an unsecured printer can be compromised. First of all, physically speaking, anyone can snatch up a paper from your printer if it is not supervised. Beyond that, print jobs can be rerouted to another printer or manipulated, potentially disbursing your data to the wrong hands.
The data which is being stored on your printer can also be harvested and attackers have used printers to attack networks before, too. Are you printing over Wi-Fi? That leads to problems on its own. Even beyond all of this, most businesses rely on printers so finding a way around these threats is crucial.
Luckily, most of these challenges aren’t very complicated and can be addressed simply.
Practices for Printer Protection
Here are a few best practices to make sure that your own printing infrastructure is secure:
- Keep your printers updated: Software updates should never be optional and it’s important to keep your printer as updated as possible. In order to take advantage of improvements made by the company, you must update your software.
- Implement access controls: Don’t just let anybody onto your printer. Much like any of your other infrastructure, you should have access controls so only your team can use your printer.
- Require MFA: To further secure your printer, you should use access controls that have multi-factor authentication.
- Are there services available that you don’t use? Disable them. Never leave extra access points for your attacker.
Seem complicated? We promise it’s not. Let MyTek help you out with your printer security solutions today by giving us a call at 623-312-2440.