Photocopiers - The New Security Frontier
Thursday, March 15th, 2007How many times have you been to a business that “needs” to copy your driver’s license, credit card, or other sensitive information? Car rental places, banks, and medical facilities are notorious for this practice. Another popular use is to make copies of tax returns.
Most photocopiers in the past few years have disk drives in them that help in producing copies. Problem is most of them have no security feature in them (digital overwrite or encryption) so a nefarious person could easily grab the information off the drive. The most vulnerable copiers are ones that are sold to another party. Copiers in small businesses can be easily stolen.
Most small businesses, libraries, tax preparers, and copy shops are not aware of the potential problem or if they were they may not know if their particular copier is a threat.
Next time you make a copy of sensitive information make sure the copier has data security features installed. It can save a large headache.
Doug
