As an IT consultant it takes a lot to surprise me when it comes to data breaches; however, this one got me. I know that copy machines are basically overgrown scanners with a printer attached but did you know that some machines buffer the pages you copy to an internal hard drive? Here’s the kicker – sometimes these pages do not get deleted from that drive. So if you upgrade your copy machine, sensitive date from your network could be compromised via this hidden Trojan horse.
I’m also appalled that copy machine manufactures have an option that will delete this information from the hard drive as they are created but in most cases it costs extra. Like seat belts in cars, this should be a standard design component and not an option.