Digital equipment has significantly disrupted the modern-day corporate world. No matter if it is a small cubicle office or a large MNC, digital equipment like printers, photocopiers, cameras, and others is an indispensable part of it. It is safe conclude that the corporate world cannot do without them, as documents are the heart of every businessf.
As technology improves, the capability of these machines has also elevated. Though some organizations see these capabilities as a great add-on, there are some potential risks. Let’s dive into the article and find out about these risks and know why confidential document destruction is necessary.
What are the Risks of Printing and Copying?
Printing and copying documents is a necessary part of various organizational processes, such as onboarding, recruitment, corporate meetings, etc. Numerous types of documents are scanned and printed for various purposes. Though it is extremely convenient, there are some drawbacks to these machines.
Data Storage
One of the perks that modern-day printers and copiers have is built-in memory that can store scanned data. As these devices can also be connected to the internet for wireless signal transmission, they become a perfect hotspot for cyberattacks.
Hackers can anytime hack into your un-updated device and steal all the crucial data. This may seem a bit unusual, but what if you scanned your bank statement from the printer and it is hacked? It will be a spine-chilling experience.
Residual Data
Yes, there are ways to overwrite or entirely delete the data on the internal hard drives of the copiers and scanners. Techniques like cryptographic erasure can be used to make the recovery of the target data infeasible, but there can still be some data left.
In short, recycling, deleting, overwriting, or throwing away the hard drives is not going to be a wise decision, as residual data would still exist.
Data Transmission Security
Other than data storage and residual data, a potential risk of copying and scanning is unsafe data transmission. As devices are wirelessly transmitting data without any security like SSL, intercepting the data using the WiFi network can be an easy job for hackers.
How to Ensure Data Protection?
There are various ways to ensure data protection, such as data encryption, deletion, overwriting, etc. Though encryption can only secure data from hackers, it is a matter of time before data gets compromised. Moreover, as mentioned, deletion and overwriting are out of the equation.
The best way here is to destroy the data altogether, but this time with a powerful shredder machine. No matter if the data is on paper or in a hard drive, a shredder can shred your data into tiny bits that will be impossible to put back together.
In the case of a hard drive, it is necessary to delete the data from the drive before destroying it. There are data destruction machines like a degausser that can destroy the data with the help of strong magnetic fields. Subsequently, these hard drives can be destroyed physically.
Information Security End-of Life Solutions
Paystation supplies industry leading, high security confidential document destruction equipment that can accommodate documents or drives of any size, type and of any kind of volume. With an array of different high-quality NSA listed/CUI and unclassified magnetic media degaussers, IT crushers, and enterprise IT shredders, Paystation has a secure solution to meet any regulation.