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Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the office-party-bums dept.

skids writes 'File this under "no, really?" CBS news catches up with the fact that photocopiers, whether networked or not, tend to have a much longer memory these days. When they eventually get tossed, few companies bother to scrub them. Couple this with the tendency of older employees to consider hard-copy to be "secure," and your most protected secrets may be shipped directly to information resellers — no hacking required. "The day we visited the New Jersey warehouse, two shipping containers packed with used copiers were headed overseas — loaded with secrets on their way to unknown buyers in Argentina and Singapore."'

10 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Thats supposed to be obvious? by EricX2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never would have guessed the copy stayed in memory on the device. When I copy, scan to email or, scan to file it doesn't give me the option to 'scan again without reinserting original'... or does that imply the ones we have don't have this 'feature'?

    1. Re:Thats supposed to be obvious? by Jaysyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Security thru lack of features, maybe.

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    2. Re:Thats supposed to be obvious? by drooling-dog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the original submission says,

      Coupled with the tendency of older employees to consider hard-copy to be "secure"...

      ...so it looks like this is only a problem for the geezers; after all, digital photocopiers are like magic to them. There's virtually no chance that any of the savvy young hipsters in your organization could fail to be aware of this threat.

    3. Re:Thats supposed to be obvious? by wjousts · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the same way that a wall is more secure than a door. It has less features to start with.

  2. Some people don't listen by bfmorgan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have pointed this out to my company's computer security guy and his response was, "I don't worry about copiers, that is a human resource issue". I have sent him this story. Maybe that will get him worried. Oh, and I cc'd the CEO.

    --
    I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
    1. Re:Some people don't listen by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why didn't you email the local head of HR? The guy told you who is responsible...

      Instead now you have a situation where you're calling someone out on something that is not their responsibility... that's not the nicest (or most effective!) way of handling it.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    2. Re:Some people don't listen by vbraga · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Better write 'Pro golf tips at the bottom' in the subject or the CEO isn't going to read it.

      --
      English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
  3. Re:No one will bother by rhsanborn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No one is going to go dumpster diving and digging through reams of discarded employee picnic announcements just to try and find some corporate secrets, wait... shoot.

    Ok, let's try this again. No one is going to go through piles of keylogger data most of which is filled with lols and a\s\l?s to try and find a persons banking credentials, wait ... frick.

    No one will do it, except the people that do. There is a buck to be made, people will do it.

  4. Re:No one will bother by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Data is valuable. Labor is cheap.

  5. Re:S/N by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the criminals will have to wade through a sea of lolcats and fail posters to get to any actual business information

    Unless they find a way to make the text searcheable and just search for "social security number" or "credit card number" and look at what's written right next to it. And while I don't know how to do that personally, it seems like the type of thing that would take about 10 minutes to figure out and then another 10 minutes to actually do.