Keep Sensitive Information Private

Keep Sensitive Information Private

Recent discoveries in the United States have thrown the spotlight on what happens to the information on the hard drive of printers, scanners, fax machines and multi-function devices (MFDs) when companies’ leases expire or the machines are on-sold.

Modern copiers and MFDs which incorporate printing, scanning and faxing now have internal hard drives like a computer. Information is stored on the machine’s hard drive and if it’s not deleted by the customer, the sensitive commercial and personal information of previous users can easily end up in the wrong hands.

“We are conscious that many customers use their machines to manage sensitive information and we advise customers to make themselves aware of the security measures incorporated in their devices and those available from Canon,” says Mike Johnston Country Manager, Canon New Zealand.

As a standard security feature on all its imageRUNNER and imagePRESS systems Canon provides a hard disk drive format feature, which enables a one time overwrite of the device’s hard drive which can be performed directly by the customer.

Information typically stored on the hard drive of an MFD may include system firmware, temporary image data, job logs, user address books, device settings and any documents stored by the users in the device’s mailbox or advance box.

“The majority of the machines returned to Canon undergo a hard disk overwrite but we strongly advise customers to take responsibility for their own data protection before returning a machine to Canon or particularly before selling it to another entity,” says Mr Johnston.

Additional measures available from Canon include a hard disk encryption kit with decryption keys unique to each individual device; hard disk drive overwrite kit; removable hard disk kit and hard disk replacement.

For more information about Canon’s security measures and how to utilise them please visit canon.co.nz or call 0800 222 666.

ENDS

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