Don’t overlook the protection of secure print management
How often do you pay attention to your office printer, sat quietly in the corner or out of the way in another room? You might be surprised that cyber criminals have their eyes on it, eager to use your printer as a gateway into your business environment.
Despite being unsecure, considerable amounts of mission-critical and sensitive documents are sent to the printer from across your business. With hackers using increasingly sophisticated methods to find and manipulate the tiniest chink in your armour, the printer provides an opportunity for them to gain unauthorised access and wreak havoc.
It’s time to shore up your defences with secure print management before it’s too late.
The cost of a cyber attack
When measured by the ounce, printer ink is more expensive than gold. Your printer could prove costlier still if it becomes the source of a data breach.
You may have thought cyber attackers were concerned with just your server and email accounts—but not so. Connected to the internet, your printer is one of more than 15 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the world today. More than half of businesses suffer from attempted cyber-attacks targeting IoT devices every single week. In short, your printer is under threat.
After a data breach, publicly traded companies suffer an average decline of 7.5% in their stock values and a mean market cap loss of $5.4 billion. What’s more, a breach can be 26 times the loss for a company’s business ecosystem.
Trojan horses, phishing and malware are just some of the cyber-attacks that can have consequences ranging from the merely disruptive to the totally devasting. When it comes to the protection of personal data, however, the GDPR has little sympathy. Companies found to have failed to have taken appropriate measures before a data breach will receive severe
penalties and fines. As of October 2023, the running total of GDPR fines for non-compliance is approximately €4.4 billion.
Overall, UK organisations pay an average of £3.4 million for each data breach. with this figure not including the immeasurable cost to reputation and customer trust. More than half of consumers believe companies are responsible for protecting customer data, and 80% of consumers will defect from a business if their information is compromised in a security breach.
Cybersecurity as a business investment
With so much potentially at stake, cybersecurity is becoming a priority for the C-suite. Even in an economic downturn, investment in cybersecurity is seen as good business sense. Two-thirds of business leaders now see cybersecurity as primarily a revenue enabler. 86% of respondents to Deloitte’s 2023 Global Future of Cyber Survey said that cyber initiatives had made a significant, positive contribution to at least one key business priority.
In addition, 54% of consumers believe companies are responsible for protecting customer data, and three-quarters consider data privacy and security a top priority when selecting a vendor or service provider. So, when it comes to attracting and keeping customers for all-important business growth, businesses would do well to market their cybersecurity credentials.
Start printing in a secure environment
Defend your documents, and protect your people and customers with the safety features of secure print management.
Hold your printing task securely in your personal print queue, with sophisticated user authentication, and be reassured by document encryption and watermarks preventing information from being compromised.
In a busy office environment, you need full accountability and transparency on the flow of information. Secure print management means you can identify specific users that have accessed or processed documents.
One of the products of the pandemic has been a huge surge in remote workers. Many use personal devices that lack the security found on the premises, and print in front of prying eyes and on networks exposed to attack at any time. Secure print management allows remote workers to send documents to be printed in an environment that meets regulatory compliance and the cybersecurity standards your business expects.
So, the next time you go to press ‘print’, look at your printer with suspicion and wonder just who or what might be lurking within. Can you afford to take the risk? Or is it time to explore secure print management to keep your documents, data and reputation safe?
