Is Your Printer Secured? HP’s Latest Campaign Asks Some Scary Questions Related To Printers, Security & Hacking [Sponsored Post]

Computer hardware, software, and services major Hewlett-Packard (HP) have launched an interesting campaign to create awareness about something which more than half of Indian companies ignore: Printer Security.

Are you aware that hackers can easily exploit the vulnerabilities of your printer, and use this gateway to hack the entire IT infrastructure of your company?

Although there are hundreds of millions of printers working actively, all over the globe, only 2% of them are secured!

And in India, 47% of companies fail to include printer security in their IT planning schedule.

Vikrant Batra, global head of marketing for HP Inc. Imaging and Printing said, “The printers in today’s enterprise environments are as sophisticated as any computing device. Hackers can pull data from a printer’s hard drive, or get access to your company’s network. And how many times have you walked by the printer and seen printouts with sensitive information just sitting there?”

HP’s The Wolf Security Campaign

HP has launched an interesting campaign under their HP Studios’ web series to create awareness about Printer Security. Christened as ‘The Wolf’, the video series aims to highlight the importance and relevance of printer security in today’s age.

Award-winning actor, Christian Slater is shown to be a creepy hacker, who is able to successfully hack entire IT system of a company, by simply entering their mailroom, wherein unsecured printers are ignored by their IT security team.

Slater says in the video, “Sheep never realize a wolf’s around until it’s too late. Then they do exactly what the Wolf expects them to do. They run into each other, they fall down—they become dinner. Time to eat,”

The video shows how printers can be actually hacked and compromised to enter the database of any company and wreak havoc all across.

Current State Of Printer Security

The premise of the ‘The Wolf’ series is that printers are left unsecured by the IT Security teams, assuming that they are harmless that way. And hackers seize this opportunity to hack the database.

And, stats prove this fact.

Here are some scary facts related to printer security, globally:

• Less than 2% of printers scattered globally are secured (based on HP internal global market sizing data divided by HP shipments as of December 2016 of Enterprise-class printers and MFP’s priced $599 and above)
• 48% of IT Security folks never scan printer logs for checking possible hacking
• 49% of IT Security teams never scan printers for malware
• 70% of successful hacks have been performed from end-point (which includes printers)
• 61% of companies reported at least one printer-related security breach in 2016

These data points have been extracted from IDC Reports.

Now, the question which arises is that: How to ensure that your printers are secured and safe, and robust enough to detect any hacking attempt?

Last month, while launching their latest A3 MFP Printers, HP explained how they are building secured printers, which have been programmed to monitor, detect and stop an attack. And once the attack has been stopped, they also explained how their printers can self-validate software integrity, by self-booting.

Maybe this is the spark which HP has ignited, to make our printers more reliable, and self-dependent to detect and stop any hacking incident.

Because a secured printer means a secured business.