Organizations or end users disposing of their printer should check whether it contains a hard drive. If so, previously made printouts may end up on the street. The Computer Crime Unit of the Belgian Federal Police warned of this this week.
Many of today's printers are equipped with a hard disk that stores print data. The advantage of this is that printing is faster.
If a printer is stolen or ends up in the trash, there is talk of a data breach. "Of course assuming the device has a hard drive where the copies of printed documents are kept for several weeks or months. When you have to replace the printer, it is also very important to take out the hard drive before you get rid of it," said Olivier Bogaert of the Computer Crime Unit of the Federal Police.
Bogaert advises users of WiFi printers to work with MAC filtering, so that only the MAC address of certain devices are allowed to connect to the printer. "In the settings of the printer, you can determine which devices you give permission to use it. That way, third-party devices can't use it even if it's visible on your network."
This news item can also be found in the Data Breach file
