Why Is Print Security Such a Big Deal?

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Do you know that feeling of being picked last amongst your peers to play in a team sport? 

Your office printers get this same treatment when your company discusses its security initiatives. They’re usually the last endpoint on every checklist. 

From the outside, printers are about as simple as it gets in terms of office machinery. However, it’s easy to forget they connect to your company network just like laptops, tablets, and smartphones. What’s more, they’re the central point where critical data flows. 

Print security is no secret. It’s been the talk of the town for some time now. Companies are quickly realizing those innocent-looking machines that perform only one important function are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. 

So why is print security such a big deal? And how can print security become a strength in your organization?

Here are some quick answers. 

Your Customers Depend On It

If you know security is a top priority, so do your customers. They want to know that your company is implementing top-notch security practices before they hand their information over. Failure to invest in your customers’ security could cost you your business. A recent report found that 84% of consumers will take their business elsewhere if they don’t trust how a company handles their data. 

How is printing a part of the picture?

Let’s use the highly-regulated healthcare industry as an example. 

New patients fill out a form online before their appointment to give the doctor a brief overview of their medical situation. They also provide their full name, address, phone number, and email. When the patient gets to the hospital, online forms are printed out and given to the doctor for reference. All of the personal info provided to the hospital ran through an office printer. 

Consider for a second how much critical data that printer has in its storage. Probably too much to count.

The point is that documents with personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI) are flowing through printers every day. Without proper print security, one breach could affect the thousands of people who trusted your company with their data. 

Internal Theft Is On The Rise

According to Ponemon Institute’s 2022 Insider Threat Report, 56% of insider attacks are caused by employee carelessness. From a printing standpoint, internal theft comes from leaving critical documents unattended in the print tray. 

It’s one of the most common (and most overlooked) ways that data gets swiped. You print a confidential document to a printer you share with five other employees. You receive a phone call, get distracted for a few minutes, and walk over to your printer only to notice your document isn’t there anymore. 

Whether it was intentional or not, someone now holds valuable information they probably don’t need to see.

What are the potential consequences of leaving documents unattended, you ask? 

Employee negligence and failure to follow security protocols cost companies an average of $484,931 per incident. Plus, malicious internal actors can sell valuable information to competitors for financial gain and help them get a competitive advantage. 

Home Office Printers Are Vulnerable

Companies are now thriving under the new hybrid work model. Employees have the freedom and tools they need to get their jobs done without ever having to step foot in the office. 

There’s only one problem.

Work-from-home employees are turning to unsecured home printers to print the documents they need for work. This has caused headaches for IT teams because home printers aren’t connected to the company network and are virtually untraceable. A 2022 Quocirca Print Security Landscape report found that 66% of IT decision-makers are very concerned about the risks of home printing. 

And rightfully so. 

Home office printers could be connected to unsecured networks, making it easy for cyber attackers to access print job data stored on the printer. Or remote workers could simply print confidential information to their personal home printer and use them for malicious intent later. 

Neither scenario is ideal.

It may be time to start thinking about solutions that allow your end users to print without relying on unsecured printers outside your company’s network.   

Unsecure Printing Is Your Biggest Expense 

This is a bold statement. I know. 

But if you’re organization is still using print servers, it’s essentially funding unsecured printing practices. Print spooler vulnerabilities like PrintNightmare are proof that print servers and the spooling process are a considerable risk to your organization’s security. Since July 2021, over 65,000 attacks have targeted print spooler vulnerabilities. And these attacks will cost you $750,000 on average. 

Unsecure print environments also cost you time. And lots of it. IT teams are tasked with manually updating printers to their latest version, installing printers for end users, and deploying printers using GPOs and scripts. This manual labor costs your organization valuable resources and opens up the floodgates for potential attacks when updates aren’t performed quickly. 

Advanced Print Security for Your Business

The answer to a lot of print security problems is simple:

GO SERVERLESS. 

PrinterLogic eliminates your print servers and gives you a centralized direct IP printing platform that simplifies printing for end users while helping you take the first step toward optimal print security. 

Want next-level protection?

With PrinterLogic’s Advanced Security Bundle (ASB), you get simple and efficient secure printing capabilities that contribute to your company’s Zero Trust initiatives without slowing down the end user experience. PrinterLogic’s ASB features include:

  • Off-Network Printing: Empower hybrid workers and guest contractors to print to any network printer regardless of which network they’re on. 
  • Mobile App Release: Enables end users to release print jobs at any network printer using the PrinterLogic Mobile App. 
  • Secure Release Printing: Print jobs are held on the user’s workstation until they authenticate their identity at the printer via PIN, badge release, or QR code release.
  • Offline Secure Release: Empower users to release their secure print job while their workstation is shut down. 
  • Concurrent IdP Support: Support multiple IdPs under the same SaaS instance—whether it’s on-prem, in the cloud, or both. 

Want more info? Check out our Advanced Security Bundle FAQ. 

Enterprise Cloud Printing Solutions

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**Originally published May 3, 2017**

Enterprise cloud printing has become a popular choice for organizations that want to stay on the cutting edge. And not without good reason. Cloud printing, like cloud services in general, makes us more mobile and is more flexible for hybrid and remote workforces. In fact, it frees us from the traditional constraints of the fixed workspace. In many cases, it also means big savings on print infrastructure and an increase in basic print manageability and oversight.

So what exactly is cloud printing? And what does it mean to have the equivalent of a cloud-based print server?

Cloud printing solutions generally take the “brains” of the print infrastructure and move it outside the organization. For the most part, this lifts the responsibility of maintaining that physical infrastructure because on-premises print servers are no longer taking up space in a server room, and you now have a cloud-based print server hosted offsite. 

Interoperability is a nice advantage, too, as you can sometimes get cloud print for Windows, Mac, and other operating systems through a single solution. Using this basic setup, off-network cloud print devices can then send jobs to a default local printer without constant reconfiguration. That’s a huge benefit to mobile employees.

But what does that mean for security and control?

The drawbacks of enterprise cloud printing are a little more subtle. And they can get lost in the excitement over all the imagined advantages of implementing cloud print. 

Some of them include:

  • Vulnerability: Just like a regular print server and its single point of failure, a cloud-based print server is subject to service outages. When that happens, all of the cloud print devices that rely on cloud printing are unable to print.
  • Lock-in: Once you’ve selected an enterprise cloud printing solution, it’s usually very difficult to migrate to a new one. The day-to-day flexibility provided by cloud printing is then offset by limiting your future choices to the same solution. Furthermore, many cloud printing solutions require proprietary cloud print devices, which could mean replacing some or all of your printer fleet.
  • Reduced control: Cloud printing is still evolving and its feature set is not always as rich as longstanding print management solutions. Depending on the cloud provider, it might be necessary to come up with workarounds for deployment protocols and functionality that have long been a part of traditional print solutions.
  • Potential loss of services: Because you’re relying on another solution to manage your infrastructure, it can be difficult to pivot when things change. Many companies were left in the lurch, scrambling for a new solution when Google Cloud Print was phased out in 2020.

So what other options are there?

With Mobile Printing from PrinterLogic, your organization can have all the benefits of both enterprise cloud printing and familiar print management solutions with none of the drawbacks. Our next-generation print management solution seamlessly integrates with any existing environment, including Citrix and VMware. And it does so with the smallest possible footprint. You also get features like powerful centralized management, Self-Service Printer Installation, and automated printer deployment—all in a solution that keeps print jobs local and secure. 

What does Mobile Printing do exactly?

Well first, it works with any device. Regardless of whether you’re using an iPhone, a Google Pixel, a Samsung, or a Chromebook, you can print to an authorized printer via PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing. All devices with browsers are effectively cloud print devices.

It also works with any printer. Once again, you don’t need to spend extra money on proprietary functionality. Even legacy printers can become cloud print devices with Mobile Printing.

There’s no additional software to install. You don’t need to load special client-side apps to gain enterprise cloud printing functionality. Mobile Printing essentially turns a standard PrinterLogic implementation into a cloud-based print server. And you also don’t need to worry about sourcing cloud print for Windows or another OS because PrinterLogic’s Mobile Printing is platform agnostic.

Mobile Printing from PrinterLogic is the only enterprise cloud printing solution that gives you security, control, ease of use, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, reduced infrastructure, unprecedented uptime, and powerful printer and driver management in a single package.

Your Guide to the Best Places To Print This Holiday Season

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There’s so much to love about the holiday season. Vacations, family time, gift-giving, and that overwhelming feeling of realizing that Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You is the only song you’ll hear from Thanksgiving until Christmas.

If you’re not in the office during the holidays, you can count on a coworker to ask if you have a confidential document they need at their desk immediately. But wait! You’re eating Thanksgiving dinner on the other side of the country with your family and you don’t want to send it via email. 

That’d be risky!

This is where PrinterLogic’s Off-Network Printing solution comes in handy. You can deliver print jobs securely to any network printer in your organization and pick them up later. Or collaborate with your colleagues to help them retrieve your print job in a matter of seconds. 

No joke. With PrinterLogic you can print to any printer behind your company’s firewall from ANYWHERE as long as you have an internet connection. 

Try these fun, real-life examples. 

 

Traffic Jams

It’s Black Friday. You finally have a day off and try to get ahead on Christmas shopping but you’re stuck in traffic. You remember that one of your colleagues at the office asked you for a document containing a client’s bank account information. 

Using Off-Network Printing (while the car is at a stop, of course), you can quickly send the encrypted print job from your phone to a network printer nearby your coworker. Just go into the PrinterLogic Mobile App and select the printer where you want to send the print job. 

Now. Let’s get those eyes back on the road. 

 

Resorts By The Beach

You’re supposed to be relaxing, taking in the sun, and living the high life, but you’re asked to send over documents containing critical data for a meeting you asked your trusted colleague to take the lead on. You have your computer on hand, turn it on, connect to the resort’s WiFi, and authenticate through your organization’s identity provider. 

Even though you’re on a completely different network, you can send that confidential 10-page document to your colleague in time for the meeting using Off-Network Printing. No hoops to jump through and no expensive VPNs necessary.  

 

Concerts

Listen to live music AND get a little bit of work done? Sign me up! You’re rocking out to your favorite band that’s having its first concert after a ten-year hiatus. It’s a Thursday night, and you’re a contract worker who has an important meeting first thing in the morning with a high-profile partner. Of course, you have documents that you forgot to print off for the meeting.

Here’s the problem. The meeting starts at 7 am. You’re rocking out so hard that you know the odds of arriving early to the office are not in your favor. Luckily, you can print the documents from your phone to your printer while you’re “jamming out” and grab them right when you walk into the office tomorrow morning. 

Time saved and crisis averted!

 

In The Sky

Now you’re probably thinking, “You’re kidding!” right?

Nope. We took the saying “The sky’s the limit,” literally with this one. 

Think of all the times you’ve been on a plane going back to your main office and knew you had to print 20-plus different documents right when you walk through the door. Wouldn’t it be nice just to walk into the office and have the documents already in queue to print? Or already printed for you? 

Off-Network Printing makes both possible by allowing you to release your print jobs when you get to the office, or already have them sit in the print tray at your office waiting for you—all from the comfort of your narrow and cramped airplane seat. 

 

In Any Country

Traveling to Spain or Italy? How about a super-remote place like Mauritius? Regardless of which country you’re in, you can send print jobs from a foreign land to your office building. This also bodes well for employees traveling to remote offices out of their home country that already use PrinterLogic as their print management solution. 

(You just finished searching for Mauritius on Google maps, didn’t you?)

Imagine the possibilities of printing securely off-network to any of your organization’s office locations. 

  • You can keep confidential documents off the internet and have them delivered directly to the printer of your choice. 
  • You can send print jobs to locations where your international colleagues can retrieve them.
  • You can release print jobs in various locations as long as they are within your company network. 
  • You become an “International Printing Master.” 

 

Best Places To Print Honorable Mentions

Your in-laws’ house

A dance recital

A movie theater

A coffee shop

Why, Arizona

Waterproof, Lousiana

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales

Yes, the last three places are real.

 

Why Off-Network Printing?

In all of the sections above, you’ll notice a recurring theme: security. All jobs are encrypted until they reach the secure printer behind your company’s firewall. For even more reassurance, you can use Secure Release Printing so that every job is held until it’s released by an authorized colleague when they get to the printer. 

Overall, Off-Network Printing is perfect for organizations looking to:

  • enable Zero Trust networks,
  • accommodate onsite contractors that are limited to a guest network, 
  • and allow printing for business affiliates and clinics. 

For a technical overview, check out our Off-Network Printing White Paper. 

Looking for the complete security package?

Off-Network Printing is part of our Advanced Security Bundle (ASB) which houses all the solutions you need for a true Zero Trust Printing experience. With PrinterLogic’s ASB, end users gain pull printing and secure printing functionality, which print jobs aren’t printed until they are physically present at the print and release print jobs via one of several authentication methods.  Additional features in the ASB include Mobile App Print Release, Offline Secure Release Printing, and Concurrent IdP Support.

Click here for more information on our Advanced Security Bundle.

Reducing Print Costs in a Hybrid Workforce

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Hybrid workforces are now pretty common in a post-pandemic world. And with hybrid workforces come many challenges and costs. Printing can be expensive in general, but distributed teams can push print budgets to the breaking point, especially when dealing with security concerns.

Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to minimize overall print costs even with a hybrid workforce.

1. Centralize your print management. 

Print servers can be extremely expensive in a hybrid and distributed workforce because they must be maintained at every location and adjusted for team members moving between offices. That means your IT team is constantly bombarded with requests and upkeep, driving up both licensing and labor costs. Going serverless can diminish these costs by getting rid of server upkeep and centralizing administration, making it simpler and faster for your team to adjust user privileges, deploy updates, and add new devices. 

2. Utilize integrations to reduce infrastructure. 

Keeping hybrid teams connected can be very costly. This can be especially true in a traditional print environment using print servers. They often require VPN connections to keep things secure and allow printing from remote or new locations. With serverless printing, however, integrations with leading Identity Providers (IdPs) can cut down on these costs by allowing you to use a service you already have to keep printing simple and secure. That means you can avoid additional expenses and still allow users to print from all locations.

3. Lock down your print security. 

Advanced printing features like Secure Release Printing can help avoid lost or misplaced documents. By requiring remote or hybrid users to utilize this feature, you can ensure that documents are not printed until the person is there to pick them up. This helps you control not only the costs associated with printing the document but also avoids any potential issues with breaches from confidential information being seen by unauthorized employees. That can lead to far bigger costs if a breach occurs.

4. Consider setting print quotas. 

Print quotas set limits on user printing. With Print Quota Management, you can create limits for how much users can print by volume or price within a certain time period. Quotas make budgeting easier and can help you cut down on unnecessary printing by making users consider how important printing a document really is. 

5. Establish processes and clarify rules.

Beyond using technology to lower costs, setting rules across the business for how and when to print can help cut down on additional expenses. There may be documents that require printing even in a distributed system, but often there are other secure ways of sharing and routing information that don’t require printing. Lay out your rules for when printing is necessary and how to print responsibly and make sure all your employees are clear on these processes.

PrinterLogic Makes Hybrid Printing Easy

Whether your team has five locations or 500, PrinterLogic allows you to easily manage your print environment from a single pane of glass. And with our advanced features and additional bundles, you can get the tools you need to keep your hybrid workforce printing and productive—all while saving on expenses.

How To Convince Your Boss You Need PrinterLogic

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You’re struggling to keep up with print-related helpdesk calls. Your IT budget is tight. Updates and patch installations are exhausting. You’ve run yourself ragged, just hoping for a way out of the madness. 

The problem is you know there’s a proven solution out there that’ll make your life easier, save time, and reduce costs. You’ve done extensive research and sought advice from others in your industry. However, you’re the only one on your team who knows about it and you just don’t know how to get your boss to see eye-to-eye with you. 

Well, we’re here to help. Follow our foolproof step-by-step guide to convince your boss you need PrinterLogic.

Here’s how you do it. 

 

1. Show your boss how many helpdesk calls are print-related.

How many helpdesk calls does your team receive daily? Weekly? Monthly? How many of them are print-related? Gartner estimates that print-related helpdesk tickets account for 40% of an IT team’s workload. This isn’t a number to scoff at, especially if your team takes hundreds of calls daily. 

Make sure to give your boss a concrete number to help put it into perspective. Weigh the number of helpdesk calls against other common issues in the workplace and emphasize that fewer helpdesk calls will allow your to team tackle additional projects and goals.

Or, throw in a few feel-good testimonials detailing how PrinterLogic has greatly reduced helpdesk calls.

“The amount that PrinterLogic saved us in hardware cost is outweighed only by how much time they have saved us. Deployment was incredibly easy, and we’ve reduced helpdesk calls by over 75%.”
–Derek Bryant, Systems Engineer at Zeus Industrial Products
Read Case Study 

“We have almost zero print-related helpdesk tickets. We went from about 2,500 printer-related tickets in a year down to three or four.”
–Chris Nilsson, Director of Technology Integration at CISD
Read CISD Case Study

The Quick Pitch: PrinterLogic reduces print-related helpdesk calls by 95%, so we can accomplish more.

 

2. Explain how print servers drain your budget and time.

Print servers are legitimate “time-suckers,” “cash-guzzlers,” and a pain in the neck for anyone maintaining them. You know this and so does your boss, but how do you get the message across? Maybe try something like: To avoid time and financial loss, PrinterLogic has the secret sauce. 

Seriously though, all unintentional rhymes aside, IT teams spend too much time updating and installing patches. Tell your boss that too much money is wasted on print server maintenance to justify keeping them around. 

Oh, and don’t forget to mention the cost of replacing one of those bad boys (at least $10,000 each). Not only does PrinterLogic ensure you never have to buy (or look at) print servers again, organizations that choose PrinterLogic see a 50% reduction in time spent on overall print management. 

Take it from these money-saving customers:

“We’re looking at annual savings of $60,480 in just IT time. Plus another $85,680 in annual cost savings in lost time for our end users.”
–Adam Dishong, Systems Administrator at Saber
Read Saber Case Study

“In the end, PrinterLogic eliminated the risk of print servers being a single point of failure and also helped reduce overall management costs for Wipfli.”
–Michael Voegtline, Senior Engineering Analyst at Wipfli LLP
Read Wipfli Case Study

The Quick Pitch: PrinterLogic eliminates costly print servers and makes up for the lost time you’ve spent managing them. 

 

3. Inform your boss about the security benefits.

Securing your print environment to protect valuable company data has been a hot topic. According to Quocirca, 70% of organizations are expected to increase print security spending over the next 12 months. Why? Print servers and unsecured printers are liabilities and have caused PrintNightmares that every IT professional wants to forget. 

Introduce print security as an essential part of a Zero Trust Network Architecture. PrinterLogic’s direct IP printing platform is inherently secure and authenticates every user via integrations with the world’s top Identity Providers, making it the perfect Zero Trust Printing solution. Plus, PrinterLogic segments every device, minimizing your organization’s attack surface. 

PrinterLogic customers have access to advanced security features like Off-Network and Secure Release Printing, which eliminate print security risks associated with employing a hybrid workforce and keep your organization industry compliant. 

These discussion topics are too good for your boss not to bite the bait.  

Need more persuasion tools?

Try sharing some of these security stats from Quocirca to get your boss on the security bandwagon:

  • 68% of organizations have experienced at least one print-related data loss in the past 12 months.
  • The average cost of a print-related data breach is over $734,000.
  • 71% of organizations say printing will be critical to their business over the next year. 

The Quick Pitch: PrinterLogic reduces attack surfaces and has security features engineered to fit every industry. 

 

4. Highlight the unprecedented ROI of serverless printing. 

Your boss wants an investment that will pay for itself over time. We already mentioned the time and money earned back by eliminating print servers. But what else can you say to convince your boss the investment in PrinterLogic is worthwhile? 

Start with this: PrinterLogic yields companies between a 100% to 200% return on their investment.

Inform your boss that PrinterLogic doesn’t require you to replace your existing hardware, including printers, to use our platform. PrinterLogic’s serverless solution is compatible with all printers that support internet printing protocol (IPP), no matter what its capabilities are. 

In terms of sustainability, organizations that choose PrinterLogic see at least a 30% reduction in print consumables since you have complete insight into your print environment. We all know how expensive ink and paper can get. Cutting back on these saves you money and helps you achieve your environmental sustainability goals. 

Remember the average cost of a print-related data breach ($734,000)? Those worries also go by the wayside. 

Here’s what customers have to say about their ROI from PrinterLogic:

“In efficiency and time savings, PrinterLogic has paid for itself exponentially. It’s paid big dividends and then some.”
–Darin Parker, Senior Information Technology Manager at QTC
Read QTC Case Study

“We were just about to upgrade our print servers, which would have cost at least $10,000 each. Add that to the other benefits and cost savings, and the ROI of PrinterLogic is nearly instant.”
–Matt Duso, IT Specialist at CFCU
Read CFCU Case Study

The Quick Pitch: PrinterLogic’s serverless printing infrastructure provides a huge ROI through reduced waste, cost-efficiency, time savings, and strengthened security. 

 

5. Emphasize how centralized management will reduce workload and increase overall productivity.

This is something any boss will get behind. You and your team are stressed and can’t get work done because printers have taken over your lives. Right now, you probably have a few print servers and can’t accurately track print activity throughout your company. You constantly install printers for end users walking in and out of your office and have to fix printers when they go down. The list goes on and on. 

Show your boss info about our Self-Service Installation Portal, which helps end users identify and install printers without IT intervention. This feature alone will reduce workloads for your team. APi Group–a company with over 160 offices–went from constantly responding to printer installation requests to having almost zero calls after partnering with PrinterLogic.  

“With PrinterLogic, we simply pull up the interface and see what’s happening at that site. And, frankly, we don’t even have to do that much anymore—the users can figure it all out themselves. It’s that easy.”
-Jeremy Morgan, Client Technologies Analyst at APi Group
Read APi Group Case Study

Next, mention PrinterLogic’s Advanced Reporting capabilities which display print activity down to the user and device level. From our Admin Console, you gain insight into valuable information telling you how much users are printing, from which device, and to which printer. 

“The fact that I can manage 500 printers from a single pane of glass, and never have to worry about managing printer drivers again, is incredible.”
–Derek Bryant, Systems Engineer at Zeus Industrial Products

The Quick Pitch: PrinterLogic lessens IT workloads by empowering end users to install their own printers and can reduce overall print management by a staggering 93%.  

 

6. Tell your boss to try a FREE trial!

Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” So don’t miss this opportunity to try a serverless printing solution for free that’ll change your workplace for the better. What’s the worst that could happen? Your boss loves us so much that PrinterLogic becomes the solution of your boss’s dreams? 

That’s exactly what’ll happen. 

So, you’ve made a compelling argument for moving to PrinterLogic and received a resounding “YES!” What’s next?

It’s a simple three-step process:

  1. Book a demo
  2. We call you and listen to your needs
  3. We flip a switch and all of your printing troubles disappear…forever