Chinese intelligence agencies could have access to the most innocent-looking assets in state and local governments around the country: the office printer.
“Printers, one of the least secure Internet of Things devices, store sensitive data on internal hard drives derived from the various printing jobs executed on a day-to-day basis,” Roslyn Layton, an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar and founder of the China Tech Threat, wrote in a report released this week.
That observation punctuates a finding that dozens of state and local governments have contracted with two companies that federal officials have flagged as security risks, specifically Lenovo, a cellphone and laptop maker, and Lexmark, a laser printer company. The report demonstrates Beijing’s reach into U.S. society, to the point of alarming federal officials.
Joel Gehrke, The Washington Examiner , February 26, 2020
Article Introduction
“’Printers, one of the least secure Internet of Things devices, store sensitive data on internal hard drives derived from the various printing jobs executed on a day-to-day basis’ …That observation punctuates a finding that dozens of state and local governments have contracted with two companies that federal officials have flagged as security risks, specifically Lenovo, a cellphone and laptop maker, and Lexmark, a laser printer company. The report demonstrates Beijing’s reach into U.S. society, to the point of alarming federal officials.”