According to a recent pan-European survey of 11,000 office employees, including 1,000 in the UK, conducted by Sharp Europe, printers continue to pose a significant and often overlooked cyber security risk to businesses in the UK.
The survey reveals that despite the growing concern over cyber threats, many businesses are failing to secure critical endpoints like printers and MFPs or provide sufficient training to employees, leaving organisations vulnerable to data breaches and cyber-attacks.
Nearly three in ten (29%) of UK businesses have no specific IT security measures in place to cover printers and just 8% of employees see MFPs as the greatest IT security threat in the office. 28% of respondents admit to printing files sent via email from home on work printers, while 21% print files downloaded from nonwork related websites without considering the associated risks. Only 18% of employees are aware that leaving printouts in MFP output trays can present significant cyber security threats.
