MANY COMPANIES ARE BLIND TO PRINTER-SECURITY RISKS

[Anonymous]

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2244288/employees-blind-security-risks
Companies blind to printer-security risks
40 per cent of staff have seen sensitive documents abandoned on the print tray
A
new survey by Samsung has uncovered what it claims is an alarming lack
of security awareness among UK workers when it comes to printing
documents.Just under half of all employees are regularly exposed to
sensitive data, such as a document abandoned on a printer, and Samsung
warned that awareness of the issues this presents must be
improved.Around 14 per cent of respondents admitted seeing salary
details, 22 per cent had seen performance appraisals and 34 per cent
had seen CV information.

Samsung’s poll of 4,500 European office
workers found that many are not aware of any printing security
processes or technologies in place at their company to prevent
printer-based information leaks.UK organisations which deal in a large
number of sensitive documents, such as the banking and finance sector,
saw the most incidences of data exposure, with 40 per cent claiming to
have seen sensitive documents on the print tray.Samsung warned that
eight in 10 UK respondents were not aware that printers store all
recent documents on an easy to remove hard drive, while over
three-quarters did not know that a networked printer is as easily
hacked as a PC.”The potential for security breaches is vast, and can
only be overcome if employees are educated about the pitfalls of
leaving abandoned documents, and with the help of a controlled printing
process,” said Geoff Slaughter, director of Samsung Print in the UK.

[Author]

June 19, 2009 at 2:02 PM