Photocopier Risk: Passing on information at resale
May 21, 2010
The copy machine is an important and seemingly harmless part of our lives. And when it's time to upgrade, the old ones are sometimes sent to e-waste centers for recycling, but usually they wind-up in a wholesale warehouse on the used copier market. Several recent stories illustrate this risk:
May 20, 2010
This has apparently been a known risk for some time now, though it is the first many security professionals had heard about it. “It kind of hit everybody with a bombshell, including a lot of security people,” said Rex Davis, director of operations at the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego, which is working on its first fact sheet about the risk. “I don’t think anyone perceived that the hard drive would keep an image of a previous job for an indefinite period of time.” Read the blog post.
April 15, 2010
At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret. Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive - like the one on your personal computer - storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine. In the process, it's turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data. If you're in the identity theft business it seems this would be a pot of gold. Read the full story.
February 8, 2010
Your doctor, lawyer, or tax preparer could all be unwittingly giving away your very private information. And they're doing it by using copy machines. You may already be a victim and not even know it, reports Tony Lopez of CBS Station KOVR in Sacramento. Read the full story.
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