Friday, 23 March 2007

Photocopiers Pose Threat to ID Theft

Identity theft is on the rise; it seems to be the fastest growing crime worldwide. To make matters worse a copier maker said Photocopiers are a new addition to escalate the dilemma of identity theft today, as new devices that have hard drives record what's been replicated.

"Consumers and business owners will photocopy highly confidential tax forms containing Social Security numbers, employer identification numbers and other sensitive information in places outside the home, leaving them vulnerable to digital theft," Ed McLaughlin, president of Sharp Document Solutions Company of America, said in a statement.

"Everyone forgets that there's data in there," said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner. "Copiers and other intelligent devices like multifunction printers are very exposed in the enterprise. They're open to attack via modems, and people forget about changing the default passwords."

"I've not heard of any cases of ID theft [from photocopiers]," said Litan. "But there is certainly ID theft in public places like Internet cafes and from kiosks, so I don't see why it couldn't happen at someplace like a Kinko's."

"We've told enterprises that they should change the password from the default on copiers and [multifunction printers]," said Litan. "They should disable all services that they don't need and make sure that the data modem is separate from the fax modem."