The Most Overlooked Cybersecurity Threat in Your Office: Your Printer

This year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month theme is “Securing the Next 250.” As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is looking toward the future and emphasizing the importance of building a secure and resilient digital foundation for America’s next era.

For organizations, that means looking beyond the most obvious cybersecurity threats. Cybersecurity is only as strong as the environment you’re protecting. And every connected device can potentially expand your attack surface, including the printers and multifunction devices employees use every day in the workplace.

CISA’s 3Rs of Cybersecurity — Reduce, Replace and Recover — provide a useful framework for thinking about printer cybersecurity, too. But first, we need to tackle the question of why printers are a cybersecurity risk in the first place?

Why Are Office Printers a Cybersecurity Risk?

First and foremost, organizations need to shift their mindsets and stop thinking of their print devices as office equipment and start thinking of them as a network-connected endpoint.

Today’s MFPs can have operating systems, internal storage, network connections, administrative interfaces, applications, user credentials and access to other business systems. They also routinely process some of an organization’s most sensitive information. Think about what employees print, copy and scan:

• Employee and HR records
• Financial statements
• Customer information
• Contracts and legal documents
• Healthcare information
• Invoices and purchase orders
• Strategic plans
• Personally identifiable information

CISA has specifically warned that printers and scanners can contain default credentials that create opportunities for unauthorized access. In some configurations, printers and scanners may also have privileged domain credentials stored on them to facilitate functions such as scanning documents to shared folders or email. If an attacker compromises one of these devices, those connections can potentially provide another avenue for accessing the organization’s environment.

That means printer cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting the documents coming out of the printer. It’s about protecting the device, the data and the network around it.

7 Printer Cybersecurity Risks Organizations Shouldn’t Ignore

So, where can printer security break down? Let’s take a look at some of the top printer cybersecurity risks that organizations should never ignore.

1. Default or Weak Administrator Credentials

A new printer is installed, connected to the network and starts working. Then everyone moves on. If default administrative credentials aren’t changed during deployment, however, the device could be significantly easier for an unauthorized user to access.

Printer administrator accounts should be treated like administrator accounts on other network-connected technology – default credentials should be changed and access should be limited to authorized personnel.

2. Outdated Firmware

You regularly update your laptop. You update your phone. Your servers and applications probably have defined patching procedures. But when was the last time someone checked the firmware on your printers?

Firmware updates can address known vulnerabilities and provide security improvements. Yet printers can easily fall outside an organization’s normal update and patch-management processes. An older device that hasn’t received firmware updates in years can create unnecessary exposure.

3. Unsecured Data Stored on the Device

Modern MFPs don’t just process documents. Some contain internal storage that may retain information associated with print, scan, copy and fax activity. That creates another place where organizational data needs to be protected.

Organizations should understand what information their devices store, use available encryption and data-protection capabilities, and establish procedures for securely erasing or sanitizing stored information when a device is replaced or retired.

4. Unsecured Network Communications

Print jobs must travel from somewhere to somewhere. If information is transmitted using insecure protocols or unnecessary network services remain enabled, organizations can create additional opportunities for exposure.

Printer cybersecurity should therefore include reviewing how devices communicate with the network, disabling unnecessary ports and services, and using secure and encrypted communications wherever appropriate.

5. Unclaimed Documents

Not every printer security risk requires a sophisticated hacker. Sometimes sensitive information is sitting in the output tray. An employee prints payroll information, a customer record or a confidential contract and gets distracted before retrieving it. Now that information is available to anyone walking past the printer.

Secure print release can help address this risk by holding a print job until the authorized user authenticates at the device. The document isn’t released until the person who sent it is actually there to retrieve it.

6. Unmanaged and Forgotten Printers

Here’s another potential problem: Do you know how many printers are connected to your network?

Organizations can accumulate printers over years. A desktop printer gets added for one department. Another is purchased for a remote office. An old device stays connected because “someone still uses it.”

Eventually, you can end up with a fleet of devices with different ages, security capabilities, configurations and update histories. If IT doesn’t know a printer exists, it’s difficult to secure it. A complete printer inventory and print assessment can help organizations identify unmanaged devices and establish consistent security policies across the fleet.

7. End-of-Support Devices

A printer may still turn on without issue and it might still work fine. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it still belongs on your network. Older devices can eventually reach a point where manufacturers no longer provide firmware updates, security patches or technical support.

Applying the 3Rs of Cybersecurity to Your Print Environment

CISA’s 2026 Cybersecurity Awareness Month initiative encourages organizations to think about cybersecurity through three actions: REDUCE. REPLACE. RECOVER.

While CISA highlights the framework particularly for critical infrastructure, these same principles provide a useful way for organizations to evaluate their printer cybersecurity strategy.

REDUCE: Reduce Your Printer Attack Surface

Every unnecessary device, service, protocol, connection and permission can potentially expand your attack surface.

Start by asking: What can we eliminate, restrict or better control?

For your print environment, that could mean:

• Creating and maintaining an inventory of every network-connected printer and MFP
• Changing default administrator credentials
• Limiting administrative privileges
• Disabling unused ports, protocols and services
• Keeping printer firmware current
• Encrypting data in transit and at rest when supported
• Using secure print release for sensitive documents
• Restricting physical access to appropriate devices
• Segmenting printers appropriately within the network
• Monitoring device activity and configuration changes
• Removing unused or unnecessary printers

Reducing risk doesn’t always require adding another cybersecurity product. Sometimes it starts by eliminating the vulnerabilities you don’t need to have.

REPLACE: Replace End-of-Support Print Devices

That 10-year-old printer might seem harmless to keep around, but from a cybersecurity perspective, “it still works” shouldn’t be the only criterion used to determine whether technology stays on your network.

Organizations should know which devices are approaching or have already reached manufacturer end-of-support. Ask questions like:

• Is the manufacturer still actively supporting this device?
• Are firmware and security updates still available?
• Does the device support the security capabilities our organization now requires?
• Can it meet our current security and compliance standards?

If the answer is no, replacement should become part of your technology roadmap.

Replacing aging print technology isn’t simply an equipment decision. It can be a cybersecurity decision. And when evaluating new printers, security should be considered alongside traditional purchasing criteria such as print speed, volume, image quality and cost. Look at capabilities such as device authentication, firmware protection, encryption, secure print release, administrative controls, logging, centralized fleet management and ongoing manufacturer support.

RECOVER: Prepare Your Print Environment for an Incident

No cybersecurity strategy can guarantee that an incident will never happen. That’s why resilience matters. CISA’s third R “Recover” focuses on an organization’s ability to restore operations quickly following an incident.

Your printers should be part of that conversation. Consider questions such as:

• Who is responsible for your organization’s print infrastructure?
• Can IT quickly identify every device connected to the network?
• Are printer configurations documented?
• Can compromised devices be isolated quickly?
• Are security events and device activity logged?
• Is there a process for restoring devices to a known, secure configuration?
• Do you know who to contact for printer service and support?
• What happens to business operations if critical print devices become unavailable?

For industries that rely heavily on printed documents, including healthcare, education, legal, financial services, manufacturing and government, losing access to print infrastructure can disrupt day-to-day operations.

Cyber resilience means planning not only to prevent an incident, but also to keep your organization operating when something goes wrong.

Cybersecurity strategies have evolved dramatically. Organizations are protecting laptops, securing email, implementing multifactor authentication, monitoring networks, encrypting data, and training employees on a regular basis. But protecting the obvious endpoints while ignoring other connected devices can leave gaps in an otherwise strong cybersecurity strategy.

Your office printer deserves a seat at the cybersecurity table. As we look toward Securing the Next 250, building a more resilient digital future doesn’t necessarily begin with the newest or most complicated cybersecurity technology. Sometimes it starts with identifying the risks that have been sitting in front of us all along.

And one of them may be sitting right down the hall…

Frequently Asked Questions About Printer Cybersecurity