Every day employees use their office printers to print, copy, scan – even fax – documents essential to their business operations. It can be easy to think of them only as output devices. But they can provide an opening for bad actors to breach your company’s – and your customers’ – confidential information. In an evolving digital business world, it’s important to know how to safeguard your sensitive information against unauthorized access or theft through the use of advanced printer security features and responsible practices.
 

 

Understanding Print Security Risks

Thanks to its capacity to do more than just print, an office printer is an integral part of day-to-day business. It contains a hard drive, memory and CPU, and it stores an enormous wealth of data, including every document that it’s ever printed or sent. Being aware of common print security risks is the first step in preventing them.

 

At the top of that list: unauthorized access, data leaks and cybersecurity threats. Even individuals with authorized access to your office – whether employees or visitors – may pose an inadvertent risk if they connect to your systems using an unauthorized device or network.

 

Print security is about securing both the physical device and its network. By restricting user access and enabling forced print features, sensitive information won’t be left unattended on a printer tray. Network security risks involve how your printers interact with the IT infrastructure and handle data transmission. The printer serves as an access point. It not only communicates with computers, tablets and mobile devices, but it also allows information to flow between them. Unencrypted data sent to or from printers can be intercepted by attackers.

 

A breach in printer security can result in your confidential and proprietary data being exposed, financial losses, regulatory fines and damage to your company’s reputation.

Essential Security Features of Printers

The spec sheet for a multifunction printer can be overwhelming. Knowing the essential security features to look for up front will help safeguard your data down the road. Here are four things a secure printer should be able to do:

• Control access: Restrict MFP access by requiring user authentication, setting user-specific permissions and limiting transmission destinations.
• Safeguard information being transmitted or stored: This means encrypting data (more on that below), securing communication settings and preventing unauthorized access to data, both in storage and in transit.
• Protect against cyber threats: Standard measures to protect an MFP from hackers include firmware verification, whitelisting and regular updates.
• Manage and monitor security settings and activity: Centralized management tools allow IT teams to manage your company’s entire fleet remotely.

 

Encryption Technologies

Data sent between an MFP device and either a PC or server is usually sent in clear (plain text), leaving it susceptible to interception. Encryption protects this sensitive data – during transmission and in storage – by converting it into coded format, ensuring it’s impossible to read by unauthorized eyes. Some of the most common types are encryption are symmetric, transport layer, print job and secure PDF encryption.

 

Canon systems support data in transit encryption as well. TLS (Transit Layer Security) encryption further prevents access to – and tampering of – data, helping keep information secure between the printer and other devices. Canon devices also come standard with print job encryption, whereby users must authenticate – for example, by entering PIN or swiping an ID card – at the device to decrypt and print documents.

 

User Authentication Methods

Ensure only authorized users access MFPs and their functions by requiring them to confirm their identity directly at the device. Here are three of the most commons methods:

• PIN authentication: Each user has a unique code to release print jobs or access printer functions.
• Authentication header: A security protocol that detects modifications to the communicated data, including the IP header, and confirms data originates from the expected source. The communicated data is not encrypted.
• IEEE 802.1x: The protocol provides authentication to devices attached to a LAN port and establishes a point-to-point closed connection only if authentication is successful.

Implementing Effective Print Security Policies in Your Organization

A print security policy outlines the rules and protocols of how your business prints documents and uses multifunction devices. Among other things, it should define print guidelines, security measures and document handling best practices, as well as environmental considerations and compliance standards (such as GDPR and HIPAA). Its contents should be communicated to all employees, and available at all times for anyone to review.

 

Steps for Secure Device Management

Whether by honest human mistake or with harmful intent, your company’s confidential information can veer off course as it moves from Point A to Point B. It’s important to protect your documents and limit access to data without impeding productivity. Requiring authentication to access devices, limiting access to specific functions on network devices and setting routine job processing to erase previous print job data automatically are three important steps. With Canon multifunction printers, you can set up device security using a security settings navigator. Select the environment type that matches your environment and follow the recommendation to configure the settings.

 

Regular Security Audits

The best way to ensure compliance with security standards and stay one step ahead of potential vulnerabilities is to perform quarterly security audits. By proactively evaluating a printer’s security settings and taking stock of users’ actions, you can configure your devices – and correct casual behaviours – to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches, and strengthen your overall print security strategy. Companies should also conduct an audit after any major changes to its IT infrastructure. Should you expand your network or introduce different software to your systems, an immediate audit will identify any new security risks.

Best Practices for Individuals to Secure Printed Data

Even with print security controls in place, you still need users to follow protocols and be diligent to ensure data is protected. For example, you can require employees use the Force Hold Print function – which requires intended document recipients to authenticate themselves directly at the device to release their printouts – but that’s only effective if the authentication method (PIN, password, ID card) isn’t shared. Individuals should always select the Secure Print function and retrieve their documents themselves as soon as possible.

 

With many offices having adopted hybrid work strategies, companies need ways to monitor the network activity of work-from-home employees. Require employees use printers that allow administrators to remotely access the audit log. This way, they can track any printing activities and detect any vulnerabilities early on.

 

Secure Home Printing Tips

Your organization’s network encompasses servers, computers and other hardware, and software applications. Your network connection is a popular gateway for cyber criminals. Require work-from-home employees use a secure network for their work devices to isolate them from their personal ones. Ensure the printer’s connection is encrypted by using WPA3 (Wi-Fi Protected Access), a wireless security protocol.

 

Choosing the Right Printer for Home Use

Some features are a matter of personal choice: single function or multifunction, colour or black and white, automatic document feeder and auto duplex printing, control panel versus touchscreen interface. Others can’t be compromised. Security features and capabilities are at the top of the list. Users will most likely connect the printer to their own Wi-Fi network. WPA3 encryption secures wireless connections and disables unused network protocols and ports, reducing the volume of attack surfaces. Even home printers connected to a network are vulnerable to malware attacks. But built-in Trellix-embedded control can help with whitelisting, giving the device permission to perform an approved list of functions, such as printing.

How Canon Printers Enhance Your Security

With built-in and frequently updated security features, both the Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE DX Series and the Canon imageFORCE C7615 can help you gain high levels of control over your MFPs, your network communications and your documents. Both platforms offer more than 55 standard security features, including standard authentication options, hard drive erase, and encryption of hard drive and PDFs.

 

Specific Models and Their Security Features

All Canon multifunction printers include standard security features to help protect data sent across the network. These include IPsec to safeguard the exchange of data at the communications level; McAfee embedded control, which utilizes a whitelist to protect against malware and tampering; and SIEM integration, which allows network administrators to monitor and control internal and external threats.

 

The imageRUNNER ADVANCE and imageRUNNER ADVANCE DX series feature the Security Settings Navigator. Once you select your environment type, the navigator will recommend security settings and the procedure for configuring those settings.

 

The imageFORCE C7615 features AI-driven Security Environment Estimation technology, which analyzes the operating environment and recommends the ideal security settings using machine-learning algorithms. This unique advanced feature ensures your business meets industry-standard security features and detects network changes in real time.

 

Canon’s Commitment to Data Protection

Protecting your device, document, data, network – and reputation – becomes more important, and more difficult, all the time. Canon designs its products to meet the highest security standards, protect work environments of all sizes and reduce the risk of security vulnerabilities. Learn more about the steps we’ve taken in the resources below.