Your Digital Copier May Be Dangerous To Your Company’s Health
The latest digital copiers are great pieces of equipment to have in your office. Many models do it all: copy, fax, scan and email. Leasing copier systems has many advantages such as access to the latest equipment, support, etc. For most companies it makes sense to lease their copiers. When you need an upgraded or newer model with more capabilities, you simply call your vendor and they replace the old one with a new unit. What can be better?
Did you ever wonder what happens to the copier you just turned in? Well, there are two possibilities:
- If the unit is in decent shape, the leasing company may refurbish it and lease it again to another company.
- If the machine is very old or not in good shape, the leasing company may just scrap it.
But here’s something most business owners don’t realize — most digital copiers contain hard drives that store all of those copies, faxes, and scanned documents you’ve been making!
Now, here’s something I know you do know: Hard Drives, if not cleaned or disposed of properly can have their contents recovered very easily by cyber-criminals.
So, here’s my question: How sure are you that your leasing company is properly removing the contents of that hard drive BEFORE leasing it to another client or disposing of the unit?
Here’s a very disturbing video from an organization called Future Crimes headed by cyber-crime expert, Marc Goodman. It’s a site you should bookmark and visit often:
This video shows a CBS broadcast on what is actually happening to all of those copiers that are recycled to new customers. The fact is: business, personal, and confidential documents are in danger of being stolen by cyber-criminals.
How do you protect yourself?
Insist that your copy vendor verify to you that it has wiped the data from the hard drive BEFORE sending that unit out again or prior to disposing of it. Many digital copiers have a “data wipe” feature that is activated by just pressing a button. However, you need to know how this function works because if this feature merely formats the drive, the data is still accessible using widely available IT recovery tools. This is simply unacceptable and leaves you open to data theft.
What does XSolutions do when it repurposes or disposes of client computers?
When a client wishes to repurpose a used computer for any reason, XSolutions’ removes the hard drive from the PC and securely wipes out the data with special purpose programs using the Department of Defense 5220.22M standard or higher. This ensures that all previously resident data on that drive is removed and cannot be recovered.
If a client wishes to dispose of a workstation, XSolutions removes the hard drive and physically destroys it to the point that its data cannot be recovered or accessed.
In conclusion
For your protection, insist that your copy vendor securely wipes out the data from the copier’s hard drive on all returned units using at least the DoD standard and ask them to verify that to you in writing.
