Did you know that your printer could be a security risk?
Video Transcript:
"Here we are again, another Tech Tip for this week. Today we're going to talk about multifunction devices.
"Everybody uses them now. You go in, you scan to email, you scan to a network share, you just make copies, you print to it, you fax from it - these devices are becoming more and more common, and less and less expensive. We find them all over the place.
"Here's the problem: most people don't go in and change that default password on those, and a lot of them have a hard drive or a memory chip in them so that you can recall things later. So if you're scanning health information, you're scanning credit card information, customer information, whatever - that can be stored on that device. If you don't properly dispose of that, one: that device can be accessed later, that data can be pulled out - huge breach, two: hackers can actually get into those devices with the default password. They might not be able to get on one of your computers today, because of security, but they can actually nest an application in the OS on the printer through a flaw (because printers or those multifunctions aren't usually updated, not a lot of times firmware is being added). If they find a flaw, they can actually nest an application that's sitting there attacking your network, waiting for a vulnerability to show up, and then giving them access. They can also retrieve those images from the hard drive.
"So make sure you take out the hard drive and destroy it, change the default password, and every so often look to see if there's an update on them. Keep them up to date.
"That's it for this week. Talk to you next time."
