Your printer can be hacked too

Las Vegas, USA: After conducting collaborative assessment and an evaluation of various device profiles, McAfee has joined hands with Xerox to redefine the model for office equipment protection, especially for multifunction printers. The new partnership offers protection to IP-enabled printers, which aren't immune to devastating attacks, through McAfee Embedded Control software.

The new technology, announced at McAfee Focus 2012 in Las Vegas, underscores the need for immediate action in case of an attack rather than having a constant check on malware attacks.

The new software embedded into the printer's controller provides instant alert and audit trail to track the origin of security threat. That in turn, expedites the action process. This negates the need for constant check on malware attacks. McAfee Embedded Control helps to protect devices from malware infections through the formation of whitelists (A whitelist is the list of files that are allowed to implement software changes).

"IT administrators don't consider printers as a threat and with the Embedded Control software from McAfee, Xerox has put defenses in its products so that they don't have to, " said Rick Dastin, president,Xerox Office and Solutions Business Group.

Now, what are the reasons for these vulnerabilities

Enterprises often ignore the inherent threats while deploying unprotected devices. "Any built-in security within connected office equipment or devices such as printers, copiers and fax machines and multi-function printers is not typically integrated with broader enterprise security tools," says Jared Weiner, analyst, VDC Research Group.

With changed security landscape, the difference between desktops, servers and printers has been blurred with all of them equally susceptible to malware attacks.

In order to create awareness, Xerox demonstrated how printers are highly prone to cyber attacks. "When a multi-function device like printer receives data and processes it for printing, scanning and faxing, it is susceptible to malware attack, but it is often overlooked,"said Tom Moore, vice-president of McAfee Embedded security.

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