This month we are covering something that in all fairness doesn’t get talked about enough, that print security. We will cover how HP can help with your print security and some of the features that HP printers offer. To do this we will cover some terms, and give a quick overview of their features and what it means to you.
Most modern-day printers are much more than just a printer. This one single misunderstanding is what probably leads to most people minimizing the threats that can come from them. A modern-day is just like any other endpoint. Today’s printers are slightly more simplified computers they have an HDD, BIOS, OS, and can connect to your network. This means we should treat them as they are computers. Just like a computer if a malicious agent gains control of if they can get access to your data through it. If these prints are computers, it follows that we protect them the same way by starting from the BIOS.
First, let’s start with the BIOS because they do have one and as we have seen if you can get to it you have complete control. To address this issue HP has developed a Secure Boot that like Sure Start these checks the validity of your BIOS before booting up. This ensures that the BIOS has not been tampered with preventing any malicious code from running before you can do anything. Next, we get Whitelisting which works on firmware doing the same thing Secure Boot does to your BIOS. The only difference here is that it also does a check for an HP digital signature.
Finally, we have three features that are all very closely related to each other. Those being the HP Trusted Module Platform, Kerberos user authentication, and security event logging. The HP Trusted Module Platform (TPM) is just a set of encrypted credentials and policies meant to improve security. Kerberos user authentication is a set of protocols that ensure a user only access authorized options and data. Lastly, we have a Security event that logs and informs you immediately of threats and performs audits on standing policies to determine any possible weakness.
HP Printers also offer some extra physical protection features to prevent someone from walking by and grabbing your documents. The first of those features is pull printing which is an end-to-end tracking and reporting to protect sensitive information. This with incorporated with encrypted pin printing means that users must enter a pin before accessing documents. Document trays will become unlocked once their corresponding pin is entered. This with tracking will let you know if unclaimed documents are sitting in trays of the printer.
The Last thing we will cover is HP JetAdvantage Security Manager which is software that protects your printer. JetAdvantage establishes policies that are easily propagated through your entire printer fleet. It also allows for automated device setting remediation and installation and renewal of certificates. Its instant-on security feature automatically configures new devices added to the network or on reboot. JetAdvantage offers easy to create proof-of-compliance reports to see what policies are in action. HP Printers come with self-encrypted hard drives to protect your data in the print queue. You’ll never worry about this data being lifted from hard drives because Secure File Erase and Secure Disk Erase remove all information of files from the hard drive to ensure they can’t be recovered.
Interested in improving your Print Security contact us, we also offer other Managed Print Services. You can contact us by using the form found below or emailing us at inquiry@powerland.ca. Our Managed Print service team can help you improve security, reduce stress, and reduce cost. We use industry-leading software and firewalls from some of the industry’s best companies. We can also help you with upgrading your network hardware with hardware from an industry leader’s. Contact us to learn about the Powerland Advantage and how we can help your organization. Powerland a trusted solutions provider in Canada for over 30 years.
