Today's network printers may still look like printers and copiers, but they have hard drives -- which means that, like desktop, notebook and server computers, and external storage, they can contain sensitive data, which should not be accessible to inappropriate users.
One company that's helping raise awareness of the issue, problems and solutions of data residing on printers and MFPs is Xerox Corporation, with an ongoing series of webinars and other events, including the webinar "Hard Disk Security Webinar: Is your confidential data at risk?" which the company conducts a few weeks ago for resellers, and has scheduled one for customers, for Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 10AM PT.
I spoke last week with one of the scheduled speakers, Larry Kovnat, Manager, Product Security at Xerox Corporation. (Here's a short video of Kovnat on this topic.
Because these devices have hard drives and CPUs, Kovnat points out. "This makes them intelligent nodes. We try and make sure people look at it this way."
This doesn't mean that these devices are inherently dangerous, but, says Kovnat, "they come with a set of risks that the plain old copier never had. And so they have to be managed, with awareness of those risks."
The risk in terms of hard drives or other non-volatile storage (meaning, storage where data doesn't disappear when the power is turned off) is protecting personal information and other sensitive data, from being accessed by inappropriate parties, whether over the network, or by removing the hard drive and examining it directly as if it were an external hard drive.
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Source: Informationweek
By: Daniel Dern
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