Question

A small company is moving towards sharing printers to reduce the number of printers used within the company. The technician has security concerns. What security risk is associated with sharing a printer?

Answer 1

Answer:

Security risk associated with sharing a printer are

1. Printer Attacks
2. Theft
3. Breach of data
4. Vulnerable Network

Explanation:

Printer Attacks

A network printer can be used for a DDoS attack.As printer are not very secured and are a weak link in network these can be easily exploited by the hackers for any kind of malicious activities and even lanching a DDoS attack.

DDoS attack is denial of service attack in which network is flooded with malicious traffic which cause it to choke and make it inaccessible for users.

Theft

Physical theft of document can be an issue.Anyone can just took printed pages from printer tray by any one.

Breach of Data

The documents which are printed are usually stored in printer cache for some time which can be accessed by any one connected to the network. Any document containing confidential information which are printed on network printer can fall in wrong hands.

Vulnerable Network

As mentioned a single unsecured network printer can pose great threat to entire network as it can provide a way into the network.