CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports that almost every one of the 6,000 used copy machines sitting ready at a warehouse in New Jersey to be sold is holding a secret.
This is because almost every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive, just like the one in your PC, to temporarily store images of the documents that are copied, scanned or emailed by the machine.
This includes a treasure trove of information, among them social security numbers, bank records, income tax forms, birth certificates, pay stubs, you name it. If you happen to stumble across a machine used by a police department, you might end up with detailed domestic violence complaints, lists of wanted sex offenders, or lists of targets in a major drug raid.
Hitting “print” on a machine from a New York insurance company produced 300 pages of individual medical records, including blood test results, drug prescriptions and a cancer diagnosis. This might even be construed as a breach of federal privacy law.
Even though manufacturers are offering encryption or security packages for their products that might help to remedy this situation to a certain extent, businesses seem to be reluctant to shell out e.g. $500 to Sharp for a product that automatically erases an image from the hard drive.
But with more and more digital copiers piling up in warehouses, this might be a small price to pay in comparison to the egg in the face that could result from accidental or intentional exposure of such oversights or lapses in judgment.
Let us help you to protect the reputation of your business as well as the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data you hold in your possession and/or have been entrusted with. Contact us today.
