Ways To Ensure The Security Of Your Office Copier Data

Ways To Ensure The Security Of Your Office Copier Data

When it comes to ensuring the security of your company’s information assets, your office photocopier may be the last thing that you will want to focus your attention to. With today’s generation of commercial copiers being highly-sophisticated, networked, and multi-functioning devices that can handle printing, faxing, copying, scanning, and emailing functions, it makes a lot of sense to adopt pre-emptive measures to safeguard your company from probable data security nightmare. Your modernized commercial copier is a storehouse of confidential data, including health records, social security numbers, and account numbers, which make it highly vulnerable to data security incidents such as identity theft and fraud. Notably, commercial copiers are often sold, leased, returned, or re-leased which further raises data security risks.

Education is the key to avoiding copier risks. Make sure that you and your employees are aware of the information stored on your copier and the degree of data loss risk at the event of device theft or data compromise.  Make sure that you limit the storage of sensitive corporate data on your copier. Responsibility is synonymous with security. Involve your company’s information security team to manage and maintain the office copier. If your information security team can secure your computers and servers, it can secure your office copier data as well.

Some modern office copiers come with advanced data security features. However, you should be aware of the presence of such features and you should learn to use them. Some office copiers feature disk erase options which ensure that a new document overrides the previous copy. Some copiers come equipped with built-in data encryption capabilities while some companies offer such capabilities as separate tools that require you to make additional payments. Make sure you remove all data from your copier before you dispose it or return it to the manufacturer or dealer. There are some companies that will manage data disposal on your behalf, saving you time and effort. If you are returning your copier to a leasing company, make sure you use software applications to clean the hard drive and maintain a record of the sanitization process.

You may need to abide by specific compliance obligations depending on the type of information you store, transfer, and receive. For example, financial institutions need to abide by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule to protect personal computer data as well as the data stored in copiers. Make sure you have adequate information about state, federal, and international requirements.

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