How Xerox ConnectKey Keeps Your Printers Safe from Cyberattacks

Cybercrime is on the rise, with new threats and high-profile
breaches appearing with alarmingly increasing frequency.

Experts have predicted this increase in cybercriminal attacks ever since the first instances of
commercially available ransomware appeared. Now, budding cybercriminal "entrepreneurs"
have access to professionally standardized toolsets and strategies – all available for a mere
stipend compared to the potential financial rewards.

Ransomware has revolutionized the world of cybercrime by generating a system for profiteering
from the security lapses of legitimate organizations and commercial institutions. However, it is far
from the only game in town. Damage from cybercriminal activities is expected to reach
$6 trillion by 2021, which will make it the most profitable criminal enterprise in the world.

By comparison, this is more than triple the current global market value for counterfeit money and
illicit drugs – otherwise the first- and second-place record holders – combined.

Keeping commercial data safe is more important than ever, and as a result cybersecurity is becoming
more than an isolated IT field. It is more accurate to say that every IT position is now a cybersecurity
job.

That means that cybersecurity professionals need more than a security operations center to
perform their jobs. They need top-down solutions for protected every connection between the
organization they protect and the outside world.

Xerox ConnectKey is an important part of the cybersecurity puzzle, threading together a tight,
defendable perimeter for print operations for organizations of all sizes.

How Does Xerox ConnectKey Keep Your Printers Safe from

Cyberattacks?

Printers are uniquely susceptible to security vulnerabilities. Most commercially available
printers and multifunction devices are factory-set to accept all incoming connections. This makes
installation easier for customers, who rarely have the time or expertise to set up a secure
cybersecurity perimeter for every new device.

But by accepting all incoming connections, printers make sensitive data easy to access by
unauthorized third parties. Without a unified system for access control, any hacker in the world
can access your printer and steal information sitting in the print queue. This key vulnerability
weakens the effect of hard drive encryption and other security practices, because all an attacker
has to do is wait for someone to print out sensitive data – like employee tax records or detailed
customer invoices.

The key to achieving best-in-class cybersecurity protection for commercial print fleets is using a
consolidated software system that monitors print orders, encrypts print orders sitting in the queue,
and assesses users' access controls in real-time. Xerox ConnectKey is the solution to this problem.

With Xerox ConnectKey, industry-leading cybersecurity comes standard. McAfee whitelisting
technology is embedded in the system, and attempts at unauthorized access trigger alerts for
cybersecurity professionals to investigate. At the same time, documents intended for print feature
256-bit encryption – ensuring that even an attacker successfully exfiltrates data, it will be unusable
unless the attacker also obtains a supervisor access key.

Another crucial element of ConnectKey's cybersecurity feature set is the ability for ConnectKey-
enabled printers to verify their own firmware. Cybercriminals are known to install malicious
firmware in devices they wish to attack – which is far more dangerous than attacking an operating
system, software application, or other higher-level function.

ConnectKey printers automatically verify their firmware on startup, and print process managers
can easily schedule regular automatic verifications. If the system discovers a discrepancy, it
immediately and securely downloads the newest firmware update directly from Xerox, minimizing
the risk of cyberattacks at the firmware level.

What About Ease of Installation?

As mentioned earlier, the primary reason why printers have these security vulnerabilities is because
printer manufacturers have an incentive to make their devices as easy to install as possible. IT
professionals don't want to spend hours embedding every single device they operate into a unified
cybersecurity system – and the industry-wide shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals often
makes the task a moonshot at best.

Xerox ConnectKey comes with industry-leading cybersecurity standard. Since these features are
already embedded in the system's cloud-based operating system, it is natively available and requires
virtually no setup time.

Xerox has succeeded in creating a secure system for assessing printer cybersecurity vulnerabilities
without requiring expensive and time-consuming IT experience for every device. The result is a truly
plug-and-play cybersecurity solution that protects company documents, customer data, and
employee records from the moment the device turns on.

Are you ready to implement a best-in-class cybersecurity solution for your company's print fleet?
Contact QBSI-Xerox's print security specialists and learn more about Xerox Connectkey.