Protect Your Business With Enhanced Printer Security Features Amidst Rising Sophisticated Cyber Attacks

Why would anyone want to hack a printer? This question illustrates why hackers choose printers as their entry point into a company’s entire systems network or to get their hands on highly important company data. No one expects their office printer to be hacked. Printers are usually deemed as “low priority” when it comes to potential security threats resulting in printer security being neglected.

Office printers are privy to all sorts of confidential data from legal contracts to personal contact information. Furthermore, these devices are often connected to the internet and have familiar web-based interfaces that hackers are accustomed too. Despite this, it is easy to forget that printers today need to be part of the company’s cybersecurity strategy. 

Hackers exploit the weakest link in the network chain to compromise a system. The “weakest link” in your organisation may be your printer. In 2020, a team of CyberNews¹ researchers sought to shed light on just how vulnerable printers are by hacking 28,000 printers. You may also recall that in 2018, Forbes² reported that 50,000 printers were used to spread propaganda about a popular YouTube personality, by using ports that had been left open to unauthorised users via the internet. These cases highlight the fact that printers should not be excluded in network security strategies and the printer you choose should come with strong built-in security protection.

At FUJIFILM Business Innovation, we make security our priority. Learn more about the advanced security features in our Apeos Multifunction devices, put in place to protect your organisation and reduce the risk of a potential cyberattack.

A safer printing experience from start to finish

Security features in these printers kick in from the moment you boot up your printer. Think of the Secure Boot feature as a “security gate” that helps your printer verify your credentials before letting you in. Several operations during the boot process verify the integrity of the firmware to deter potential “intruders”. Any problems detected will cause a reboot to a fail-safe state.

During normal operations of the printer, Runtime Intrusion Detection will set in for added protection. This feature constantly verifies the firmware, otherwise known as the piece of software embedded into your printer to control it. This helps to promptly detect if any tampering or modification has been made to it. 

To secure print jobs, these devices also support IPSec. This includes both encryption and authentication to protect all network traffic to and from your devices.

These robust security features work in conjunction with each other and supported by existing organisational security policies around password protection and password expiry cycles to ensure your printer is always protected.  

Seamless and Secure Authentication Process 

Don’t let your data or documents get into the wrong hands. The robust security features of the Apeos Multifunction devices are specially designed to prevent this from happening. Similar to how access to confidential documents can be limited, our printers restrict device functions based on the users’ group. 

How does it know which group you belong to? It authenticates users with the corporate directory via LDAP3, LDAP over SSL4, Kerberos or NTLM5. This is an especially important feature we’ve included for office environments where everyone accesses the same printer.

For a tighter protection, the Apeos Multifunction devices range offers Whitelisting. This allows you to grant access permission only to a specified list of addresses thus protecting your device against unauthorised printing and configuration issues. 

Have you ever gotten to the printer and seen other documents waiting to be collected in the print tray? Business printing often involves sensitive documents containing confidential data such as financial statements, legal documents and personal information. Our Secure Print feature ensures optimal print privacy and keeps others from sneaking a peek at what you’re printing. Print jobs are held until the intended recipient enters a unique PIN that allows the job to be printed. 

Seamless and Secure Authentication Process 

Security and usability often seem to be on opposite sides of the coin. Our product innovation and industry-leading technology have brought us to a sweet spot where a trade-off on usability no longer needs to be made to prioritise printer security. Enjoy the superior performance of the Apeos range with easy-to-use functions and enhanced security features for all-round office protection. 

Ready to get work done easily in a smart and secure environment? Explore FUJIFILM Business Innovation’s new range of Apeos Multifunction devices today.  

Disclaimer: Features may vary by models.

¹CyberNews Team (blog), “We hijacked 28,000 unsecured printers to raise awareness of printer security issues”, Aug 27 2020. 
URL: https://cybernews.com/security/we-hacked-28000-unsecured-printers-to-raise-awareness-of-printer-security-issues/
²Thomas Bewster, Forbes, “A Hacker Forced 50,000 Printers To Spread PewDiePie Propaganda -- And The Problem Is Much Bigger Than You Know”, Dec 3 2018.
URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/12/03/a-hacker-forced-50000-printers-to-spread-pewdiepie-propagandaand-the-problem-is-much-bigger-than-you-know/?sh=a3e7f7238199
³LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
⁴SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
⁵NTLM (New Technology LAN Manager)