A recent CBS News report titled, "Your Office Copy Machine Might Digitally Store Thousands of Documents That Get Passed on a Resale," has caused quite a sensation in the business community. The report indicated that potentially private, sensitive data can be left on the hard drives of copiers after they are returned at the end of their lease period. The report also state that businesses and organizations need to be aware of the need to "wipe" the hard drives clean prior to returning the equipment.
A follow up CBS News report indicates that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Congress have now gotten involved and may initiate an investigation of the copier security issue.
What the report failed to mention is that there are numerous automatic security measures already in place on today's office equipment. For example, automatic overwrite, in which the information temporarily stored on the copier hard drive during printing or scanning is overwritten with information from the next job that is sent to the device. Not all information from every individual job is stored permanently on a copier's hard drive, as most of it is constantly being overwritten with each new job.
There are also many options available to maintain security on existing copy machines or to utilize at the end of lease or reallocation of a copier: sanitizing the hard drive, replacement of the hard drive, and installation of data security kits on existing machines that allow for the erasure or encryption of information on a continuous basis.
Regardless of which option a business selects, the best protection against data theft is to prevent unauthorized access to all equipment capable of storing data digitally. This includes not only office copiers, but also personal computers, laptops, mobile "smart" phones, and digital telephone equipment.
