According to Quocirca’s Global Print Security Landscape Report 2019, nearly 60% of businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany were the victims of at least one print-related data breach in the prior year. Each print-related data loss cost these businesses around $400k on average.
Worse still is that 32% of print-security incidents like these were found to be caused by internal users. That means practices and protocols within the organization created an opportunity for almost one-third of these breaches to occur.
These stats don’t just highlight the importance of secure print management in every environment. They also highlight how organizations have the ability—and the need—to take active and effective steps toward hardening their print security.
The first and most fundamental step is choosing the right enterprise printing solution. And there’s a strong argument why that should involve cloud printing.
How the cloud can boost secure print management
With a solution like PrinterLogic SaaS (formerly PrinterCloud), migrating your print infrastructure to the cloud has a dual benefit. One of these benefits is that it allows for more flexibility. The other is that it creates a platform for a more secure print environment.
Let’s be honest, those two aspects normally don’t pair well. Increased flexibility is often seen as the enemy of security. And that might be true when you’re dealing with legacy enterprise printing solutions like print servers.
But when we’re talking about PrinterLogic SaaS and its unique combination of centralized management and direct-IP printing, flexibility and security can actually complement one another. Here’s how:
- Print access is easier to limit and enforce. With admins now able to manage the entire print environment from a single pane of glass, it’s more convenient and more efficient for them to configure and monitor targeted printer deployments. PrinterLogic SaaS also eliminates the hassle of GPOs and scripts while allowing for more granular control. In short, print access is restricted to the right users.
- It removes single attack vectors. By breaching a print server, a malicious actor can gain access to the print queues (among other things) for every connected user. Unlike common cloud-printing solutions, the highly scalable, direct-IP paradigm of PrinterLogic SaaS decentralizes printing. Print jobs stay between individual clients and individual printers. What’s more, it minimizes print infrastructure by eliminating the need for print servers.
- Secure release printing is standard. PrinterLogic SaaS also eliminates the need to source third-party enterprise printing solutions to introduce additional layers of security. With secure release printing functionality now included in PrinterLogic SaaS at no extra charge, organizations can seamlessly roll out increased print security across the organization.
Secure print release with PrinterLogic SaaS
That last point merits a little more detail.
PrinterLogic SaaS secure release printing is the user-facing counterpart to secure print management. What it does is turn routine cloud printing into a straightforward, two-step, on-demand process. Instead of print jobs being executed automatically when a user clicks “Print,” they’re temporarily held at the initiating workstation—not on a vulnerable shared server.
When the user reaches the destination printer, they authenticate using one of several possible methods: a badge/card reader, a PIN, the printer’s control panel, or even PrinterLogic’s Print Release App. The printer then executes the print job. This keeps sensitive documents from being stolen before the initiating user can retrieve them, from being forgotten in output trays, from being sent to the wrong printer, or even just glimpsed by another user.
Thanks to the innate flexibility of PrinterLogic SaaS, its secure printing functionality is cross-platform and vendor agnostic. That avoids the hardware and software lock-in associated with many other enterprise printing solutions.
Easy to test, easy to migrate
Testing PrinterLogic SaaS is simple. All you have to do is take a few moments to sign up for the free trial and you’ll be able to take the next 30 days to experience the security and ease of cloud printing with PrinterLogic SaaS. If you’re like the folks at Clark County, Nevada (read the case study here), it won’t take long for you to appreciate the incredible efficiency and potential that PrinterLogic SaaS offers.
Once you’re satisfied, the PrinterLogic SaaS migration tool makes it just as easy to convert your existing print environment to our cloud-based platform. From that point forward, you’ll be able to enjoy effortless, highly available cloud printing along with the peace of mind that comes from secure print management.