Security Requires Vigilance; Xerox Integrates McAfee Technology

When it comes to securing printers and multifunction printers (MFPs), Xerox has a long history and proven track record of innovation. I know first-hand as I’ve helped design and develop many of the security features in our products. We were the first to introduce Secure Print which allows you to print documents only after you type in a PIN at the front panel. And when our customers started asking for removable hard drives they could remove and replace daily, we introduced an additional mode of Image Overwrite which overwrites the print/copy/scan/fax data immediately after the job is completed.  The philosophy of providing comprehensive security as part of our standard feature set remains today. We even have a dedicated web site  with RSS feeds, assurance data and vulnerability patches when necessary.

Like most high-tech business tools, multifunction printers contain computers which make them a vulnerable entry point into an organization’s network and private databases. So earlier this week, Xerox announced we are teaming up with McAfee to extend the security protection profile of our products. This new level of protection will help us stay ahead of the new and sophisticated security threats emerging every day.

We want our solution to be easy for IT and our small business professionals and do not want to add the burden of additional daily tasks such as building new security profiles or running anti-virus updates. We’ve determined integrating McAfee software into Xerox technology along with white listing, whereby the MFP’s factory installed files are protected as part of an approved list, would be a perfect fit. In fact, any other file access – read, write, add, modify and execute – is considered malicious. Stated simply, ‘known is good, anything unknown is bad’. The solution will also be designed to automatically report security events to help our customers track and investigate potential issues. This extends security on multifunction printers to a whole new dimension which has typically only been present on devices such as ATMs.

I am excited to be a part of this new initiative that will ensure our MFPs are compliant endpoints that work within our customers’ extensive security policies. With the dizzying array of industry compliance regulations and new threats, it’s more important than ever to remain vigilant.