Innovation cycles for office equipment such as printers, copiers, scanners, and telephone systems are getting shorter and shorter. At the latest every three to five years, these are usually disposed of by the law firm unless they get to lease copier. This opens up a dangerous security gap.

Office technology can prove to be a dangerous “chatterbag”. Not only PCs, even copiers today store vast amounts of sensitive data. And in every law firm, there is sensitive and confidential data: from offers to pleadings and contracts with clients to personnel files or construction drawings. All this is copied, scanned, printed – and also stored. The hard drives of modern copiers can archive up to 10,000 documents and more.

Remove a hard drive from office equipment

In order to close this Security Gap, the devices should be disposed of professionally instead of sold on eBay & Co. for little money.

• Because the risk that data thieves are not interested in the professional device itself, but in the data hidden in it, is quite high.
• At the very least, a resale should only take place if the hard disk of the copier has been removed beforehand.
• Because even the possible deletion of the hard disk is not secure.

The deletion usually takes place only on the surface. The actual deletion process only starts when the data is overwritten – sometimes never.

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Adjust contracts for office equipment

Since lawyers are often not IT experts, they should seek expert advice. In the purchase or leasing contracts with the office equipment suppliers, they should also ensure that the contractual partner takes back the equipment at the end of the term and permanently deletes the data before any further storage and use of the equipment – preferably in the law firm in the presence of witnesses.

Secure against theft

Modern copiers today are usually part of a WLAN network, so clever hackers can also access them via the Company Network. Here, too, it is important to close any security gaps with IT experts and to keep the software up to date.

Special anti-theft measures within the real law firm should also be considered. So an expansion of the hard disk of copiers should not be so easily possible.