Too often, senior managers in the mid-sized business (MSB’s) community miscalculate the extent to which their business is at risk of a costly data breach. This is often based on a misguided belief that criminals only want to target large enterprises. In reality, MSB’s are as much a target for data thieves as large enterprises. In fact, over half of all data breaches in the past 12 months were suffered by small and mid-sized businesses.

While there may not be the quantity of data to steal, businesses of all sizes still store and process personal data that is valuable to criminals. In addition, with a lower budget often allocated to MSB’s security, there is a high chance that the IT infrastructure will not have the same level of protection that a large enterprise is likely to have in place, making it easier for a hacker to “break in”. Hackers have also been known to use other companies i.e. suppliers, with less protected networks as a gateway into enterprises they work with, making them even more susceptible to an attack.

On the hardware side, in the MSB environment, office hardware is often the responsibility of someone with limited, IT and network security knowledge. Therefore they may not recognize why office MFP’s could be the weakest link in their cyber security, and how vulnerable their printing/ copying environment is to a disgruntled employee or an external hacker accessing confidential data.

Encouraging and educating organizations of all sizes, on the importance of using a secure, easy to implement document output solution such as FollowMe®, by Ringdale will ensure:

  • Confidential documents are not left in the print tray for all to see
  • Confidential data is watermarked to remind the receiver of the sensitive nature of the content
  • Everything in the print queue is monitored with restricted documents automatically stopped from being printed to prevent loss of valuable or confidential information
  • Documents in transit and at rest are encrypted to prevent cyber attackers from being able to read them

To find out more about FollowMe, visit their website: followme.ringdale.com/


Office Printing Continues to be a Major Security Concern, According to 62% of Firms Surveyed in the Latest Quocirca Security Report