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The "New" Paper Trail
Bryan Young
Staff Writer
2010-07-01
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These days, with threats of computer hackers stealing data to insurance companies "accidentally" publishing hundreds of thousands of peoples most sensitive information on the internet, data security is a very prevalent issue. A CBS news investigation recently turned up a new source of potential data leakage, the standard office copy machine.
 | | The "New" Paper Trail |  |
Unknown by the majority of Americans, almost every single copier built since 2002 has an internal hard drive which stores a digital copy of each document copied, scanned, or printed using the machine. This can be a useful feature for storing fax cover sheets and other commonly used documents. The problem comes when personal information is copied for office use. For example, doctors making copies of medical records, insurance companies making copies of claims information, or employers making copies of drivers licenses. Each time a copy is made, that information is stored in a way that is easily retrievable by anyone with access to the machine.
There are numerous rental services which rent out copiers to businesses with no set policies on dealing with this kind of security. Some offer to scrub the hard drive when it is returned, but they can charge up to $500 for the service. There are also refurbished copiers for sale containing data from any previous owners. At least in these cases, the owner has physical access to the machine to be able to take steps on their own, such as purchasing an encryption service for the internal hard drive, or their own data deletion tools. What is more worrisome are the copy and print shops where there are no guarantees on document security. Anything copied there is stored on their machines, where it is unlikely that any measures are taken to wipe the drives on a regular basis, if ever.
If your office handles private information, or anything else that doesn't need to be shared with others, steps should be taken to make sure that the information stored inside your copier is safe. There are usually services available from the manufacturers to have the data removed from the device after each job is completed, or at least encrypted, although this can significantly add to the cost of the machine.
About the Author:
Bryan is a staff writer for SecurityProNews
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