Beyond Cyber Smart Week: Don’t Overlook the Print Fleet
Cyber Smart Week may be over, but cyber security remains an everyday priority. As organisations continue strengthening their cyber resilience, it’s worth revisiting one often-overlooked area of the IT environment: the print fleet. Here are a few key reminders to help keep your business secure year-round.
There’s a lot of good cyber security work happening across New Zealand organisations right now. Endpoints are being hardened, identities are being better protected, and cloud environments are receiving greater attention. Yet amidst these efforts, one connected device is often overlooked: the print fleet.
Research conducted by Konica Minolta Australia and New Zealand in partnership with Omdia found that print-related security incidents remain a significant concern across organisations. While businesses continue to invest in cyber security, print infrastructure has often sat outside the governance frameworks applied to other connected devices.
As organisations review and strengthen their security posture following Cyber Smart Week, now is an ideal time to ensure printers and multifunction devices are included in network security maps, risk assessments, and cyber resilience strategies.
A Printer Is a Computer That Happens to Print
It’s easy to forget, but modern multifunction printers are sophisticated network-connected devices. They contain operating systems, processors, storage drives, and web-based management consoles. They connect to email systems, cloud platforms, document repositories, and directory services, often storing credentials and sensitive business information along the way.
Like laptops, servers, and other endpoints, printers require ongoing management and security controls. However, they often receive far less scrutiny than the rest of the IT environment.
Is Your Print Fleet on the Security Map?
When reviewing security controls, it can be helpful to think from an attacker’s perspective.
If a cybercriminal gains access to a network, they will look for devices that are under-managed, under-monitored, or poorly segmented. Printers can present an attractive target when they:
- Share the same network as critical business systems
- Store scanned or printed documents
- Retain service account credentials
- Lack strong authentication controls
- Are excluded from monitoring and alerting systems
Research also highlights ongoing print security challenges, including vulnerabilities associated with hybrid work environments and inconsistencies in print authentication and secure-release printing practices.
Five Actions to Strengthen Print Security
- Segment the Print Environment
Place print devices on dedicated network segments or VLANs and restrict communications to only the services they require. A compromised printer should not provide easy access to critical systems.
- Strengthen Administrative Controls
Replace default credentials, restrict administrative privileges, and regularly review device access settings. Printer administration should be managed with the same discipline applied to other privileged systems.
- Secure Authentication and Print Release
Implement consistent authentication policies and secure-release printing across all sites. This ensures documents are only released when authorised users are physically present at the device.
- Monitor Print Devices
Include printer logs within existing monitoring and security platforms, and ensure print infrastructure is considered within incident response plans.
- Secure the Device Lifecycle
Printers can retain business information long after documents have been printed or scanned. When devices are redeployed, returned, or retired, ensure all storage media is securely wiped.
A Question Worth Asking
As organisations continue building cyber resilience beyond Cyber Smart Week, it’s worth asking the same question of every connected device on the network:
If an attacker gained access to this device, what could they do next?
Printers and multifunction devices should be included in that assessment. By ensuring the print fleet is visible on network security maps and managed to the same standards as other endpoints, organisations can address a common blind spot and strengthen their overall cyber security posture.
For organisations looking to improve print security, solutions such as bizhub SECURE can help harden devices to recommended security settings and support a more comprehensive approach to securing the entire IT environment