Top Print Security Threats and How MSPs Can Lock Down Your Fleet

Key Takeaways

• Printers and MFPs are fully networked devices with embedded operating systems, hard drives, and direct access to sensitive data, and 67% of organizations experience print-related data losses.
• Unpatched firmware is an actively exploited attack vector, but the right managed print partner handles fleet-wide patch management so nothing slips through.
• Every document scanned, printed, copied, or faxed may leave a record on a device's hard drive, requiring encryption at deployment and certified data destruction when a device is retired or returned.
• Unsecured print jobs left uncollected in output trays create compliance exposure in regulated industries. Secure print release eliminates the risk by holding jobs in a queue until the right user authenticates at the device.
• Network-connected printers with default credentials and no segmentation give attackers a foothold into broader infrastructure. Proper device hardening and continuous monitoring close that door before it's tested.

Most organizations treat printers as peripherals. Attackers treat them as endpoints—and they're right to.

A modern multifunction printer (MFP) connects to your network, stores documents, processes authentication data, and in many cases runs a full embedded operating system.

Default credentials, open network ports, and minimal access controls make unsecured networked printers an attractive entry point.

Today, we’ll break down the most pressing print device security threats facing organizations today and demonstrate how partnering with a managed services provider gives IT teams the infrastructure, tools, and ongoing oversight to address them systematically.

Top 4 Print Security Threats And How To Avoid Them

67% of organizations experienced data losses due to unsecure printing practices, up from 61% the year before. For SMBs in industries like healthcare, government, and professional services, those numbers carry real consequences.

Let’s take a look at the most common culprits and how the right device paired with the right service partner can keep your data safe.

1. Firmware Vulnerabilities

Print firmware updates rarely make it to the top of the patch queue.

Unlike operating systems that prompt for updates or applications that auto-patch, printer firmware often requires a deliberate, manual action. That rarely happens on schedule.

In fact, only 36% of IT teams apply printer firmware updates promptly, and the impacts are significant.

Unpatched firmware is a known attack vector. Recent examples include CVE-2024-38199, a remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Line Printer Daemon service, and CVE-2024-21433, a Windows Print Spooler elevation of privilege vulnerability. Attackers don't need to find novel exploits when documented vulnerabilities go unpatched for months.

Part of the remedy starts with the device itself. Manufacturers differ considerably in how seriously they treat firmware security. Devices from vendors with strong security track records— those that publish CVE disclosures, maintain active firmware update pipelines, and support automated update capabilities—give IT teams a meaningful advantage.

Konica Minolta bizhub i-Series MFPs are highly rated for security, featuring ISO/IEC 15408 certification and passing intensive penetration testing by NTT DATA. They are recognized as a leader in print security, offering robust features like BizHub BitDefender anti-malware, encryption, and authentication.

When evaluating printers and MFPs, the security architecture and the manufacturer's patch history deserve as much attention as print speed or paper capacity.

Another layer is a managed service provider. MSPs eliminate the costly coordination gap between procurement, IT, and security teams when defining printer security standards. Rather than relying on an already-stretched internal IT team to track CVEs across every model in a mixed fleet, a managed print partner handles fleet-wide firmware monitoring, schedules updates proactively, and maintains an audit trail of patch activity.

2. Hard Drive Data Storage

The MFP in your office almost certainly has a hard drive, and that drive stores data. Every document scanned, printed, copied, or faxed may leave a record on that device, including patient intake forms, signed contracts, financial statements, or HR documents.

The risk runs in two directions.

• First, data stored on an inadequately secured device is potentially accessible to anyone with network access to the printer, no physical proximity required.
• Second, when a device reaches end of life and is returned, traded in, or disposed of, that stored data goes with it unless it has been properly destroyed.

It’s important to note that secure erasure of MFP hard drives is mandatory for ongoing data protection, impacting organizations subject to HIPAA, CMMC, or state-level data privacy regulations.

Modern MFPs designed with security in mind often offer hardware-based encryption for stored data and secure erase functions that overwrite drive contents to recognized standards.

Beyond office device selection, an MSP establishes and enforces policies for the entire data lifecycle on print devices, from encryption configuration at deployment through certified data destruction at end of life. It also means organizations aren't relying on an employee to remember to wipe a hard drive before a leased device ships back to the manufacturer.

3. Unsecured Print Jobs

Consider what gets printed in a given week at a mid-sized organization: employment offers, patient records, legal agreements, and financial summaries.

When those jobs are sent to a shared printer without authentication controls, the document sits in the output tray, available to anyone who walks by before the intended recipient arrives.

For regulated industries, that's not just an operational inconvenience; it's a potential HIPAA violation, a breach of client confidentiality, or a compliance flag waiting to be audited.

Beyond the output tray, print jobs traveling across a network without encryption can also be intercepted in transit—a particular concern in hybrid environments where employees are printing from off-site locations or over less-controlled connections.

Secure print release, also known as pull printing, addresses this directly. Rather than printing immediately upon job submission, the document is held in a secure queue until the user authenticates at the device via PIN, badge, or mobile credential. The job only releases when the right person is standing there to collect it. The right MFP makes this practical.

An MSP takes it a step further. Deploying secure print release across a mixed, multi-location fleet requires consistent policy configuration, user enrollment, and ongoing administration. A managed print services partner handles that rollout and monitors for gaps, ensuring that authentication controls are actually functioning across every device.

4. Unsecured Network-Connected Printers

The three threats covered so far represent a specific failure point. This fourth print security vulnerability is structural: when printers aren't properly isolated and hardened on the network, they become a foothold into everything else.

A printer with default credentials, unnecessary services running, and no network segmentation is effectively an open port into your infrastructure. Once an attacker has access to the device, lateral movement to other systems becomes possible.

Network hardening for print devices follows a clear set of practices:

• Disabling unused ports and protocols
• Requiring authenticated access
• Placing printers on segmented VLANs separate from core business systems
• Enforcing encrypted communications.

The challenge for internal IT teams is having the bandwidth to implement and sustain it across every device in a distributed fleet.

The Konica Minolta Advantage:

Bizhub SECURE is Konica Minolta’s professional security service that custom-configures multifunctional printers (MFPs) to lock down data. Rather than relying on out-of-the-box factory configurations, certified technicians reprogram the MFP's hardware and network protocols to match strict corporate compliance standards.

Proactive Protection: The bizhub SECURE service allows for advanced security settings, including mandatory encrypted PDF passwords, automatic document deletion, and secure printing.

Active Threat Management: Features "Authentication Attack Detection" to block brute-force attacks and optional BitDefender anti-virus to prevent malware spread.

Compliance: Designed to meet HIPAA, GDPR, PCI, and FERPA requirements

That's where the device and the service model work together. Printers and MFPs are configured with security baselines in place, and the managed print services layer ensures those configurations don't drift over time.

New devices are onboarded correctly. Access policies are enforced consistently. And when something changes, like a new CVE, a network topology update, or a device added outside the normal procurement process, there's a partner actively monitoring for the deviation.

Secure Your Print Fleet Before It Becomes a Liability

Every printer in your fleet is a networked device with storage, credentials, and access to your most sensitive data, making ongoing security threats a constant problem.

The organizations that manage them well have stopped treating print infrastructure as an afterthought and started treating it as part of their security program.

SymQuest helps organizations across Vermont, New Hampshire, northern New York, and Maine do exactly that with the right devices configured correctly from day one, and the managed print expertise to keep them that way.

Contact SymQuest to talk through a print security assessment for your fleet.