The office is buzzing with holiday energy. Someone’s organizing the Secret Santa exchange, the break room calendar shows three party dates circled in red, and your team is already planning out-of-office replies for that final week of December. It’s the time of year when business slows down, guards drop, and everyone’s focus shifts from quarterly goals to gift wrapping.
Cybercriminals know this. And while you’re debating catering options for the year-end celebration, they’re scanning your network for the devices you probably forgot existed—your printers.
As we head into 2026, it’s time for an uncomfortable truth: those multifunction printers humming away in your office aren’t just document workhorses. They’re fully networked computers with hard drives, memory, and direct access to your most sensitive data. And according to recent industry research, 67% of organizations experienced at least one print-related security incident in 2024—up from 61% the year before. The average cost of these breaches? Over $1.3 million USD.
That’s not a typo. Print-related data breaches now cost organizations an average of £1,028,346 (approximately $1.3 million USD), representing a 38% year-over-year increase from 2023.
If your 2026 budget planning doesn’t include a hard look at print security, you’re gambling with more than just paper jams.
The Perfect Storm: Why Print Security Matters More Than Ever in 2026
Three forces are converging to make print infrastructure your most vulnerable endpoint heading into 2026:
First, hybrid work has shattered the traditional security perimeter. Your employees aren’t just printing from the office anymore. They’re sending documents from home networks, coffee shops, and hotel business centers. Each print job traverses public networks, creating exposure points that didn’t exist three years ago. Research shows that 56% of print-related data losses now involve vulnerabilities around home printers and remote work scenarios.
Second, printers have become invisible in your security strategy. When was the last time your IT team updated printer firmware? Do you know if your devices still use default passwords? Can you verify that print jobs are encrypted in transit? If you hesitated on any of these questions, you’re not alone. Only 26% of IT and cybersecurity professionals feel completely confident their printing infrastructure is secure. Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts report that printers lack the detection and prevention measures found in other networked devices, making them attractive targets for attackers seeking to establish persistence and gather business intelligence.
Third, the regulatory and threat environment isn’t getting any friendlier. Zero Trust architecture—the security model that assumes breach and requires continuous verification of every access request—is rapidly becoming the baseline expectation. Gartner predicts that 60% of enterprises will embrace Zero Trust as a starting point for security in 2025, which means print devices can no longer operate in trusted zones. Every printer, every job, every user must be verified. Organizations that can’t demonstrate this level of control face not just technical vulnerabilities, but compliance failures.
What Makes Printers Such Attractive Targets
Think of your office printer as a filing cabinet that anyone with network access can open remotely, rifle through, and walk away with copies of everything inside—without ever stepping foot in your building.
Modern multifunction printers store copies of every document they’ve processed on internal hard drives. They maintain network connections 24/7. Many still run on outdated firmware with known vulnerabilities. And because they’re shared resources accessed by dozens or hundreds of employees, they represent a single point of failure that can expose payroll records, client contracts, financial statements, patient information, and proprietary business data.
The most common printer vulnerabilities read like a hacker’s wish list:
- Default passwords that were never changed (imagine using “admin/admin” as your network gateway)
- Unencrypted print jobs traveling across networks (your sensitive documents, readable in plain text)
- Outdated firmware with published security flaws (like leaving your front door unlocked because you haven’t checked if the lock still works)
- Unsecured remote access (particularly dangerous in hybrid work environments)
- Hard drives never wiped before device disposal (those old printers you sent away? They still contain years of company data)
But here’s what keeps security professionals awake at night: printers are rarely monitored. Your security operations center might track suspicious login attempts on workstations and flag unusual server activity, but printer access? Those devices operate in the shadows, processing sensitive information with almost no oversight.
As one security researcher recently noted, “Most modern printers lack security detection and prevention measures and are often not monitored by organizations—for these reasons, there’s no concrete data on how much printer compromise might actually be occurring globally.”
Translation: The problem is likely far worse than the statistics suggest.
The Real Cost Goes Beyond the Breach Itself
When businesses calculate the cost of a data breach, they often focus on the immediate expenses: forensic investigation, notification requirements, potential regulatory fines. But print-related security incidents create cascading costs that can cripple operations:
Business disruption is often the first domino to fall. When ransomware infiltrates through a printer vulnerability, it doesn’t just lock that device—it can spread throughout your network, halting operations across departments. One compromised printer can become the entry point for attacks that take down entire systems.
Reputation damage follows quickly behind. Your clients trusted you with their information. Vendors assumed their proprietary data was secure. When news breaks that sensitive documents were exposed because of unsecured printing practices, that trust evaporates. Organizations in finance, healthcare, legal services, and any industry handling confidential information face particularly severe consequences.
Productivity losses compound the problem. While your IT team scrambles to contain the breach, patch vulnerabilities, and restore systems, your staff can’t work. Print-dependent processes grind to a halt. The average mid-market organization experienced data loss rising to 74% among smaller businesses, suggesting that companies without dedicated security resources face even steeper operational impacts.
Compliance penalties can turn expensive into catastrophic. GDPR violations can cost up to 4% of annual global revenue. HIPAA breaches in healthcare can trigger fines of $1.5 million per violation category. And increasingly, regulators are asking the uncomfortable question: “How did this happen?” If the answer is “we didn’t secure our printers,” good luck explaining that to your board.
Five Actions Every Business Should Take Before 2026
The good news? Print security isn’t rocket science. It requires attention, yes—but addressing these vulnerabilities is far less painful than dealing with a breach. Here’s where to start:
1. Conduct a print infrastructure audit immediately. You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. Document every networked printer, noting firmware versions, security settings, and access controls. Pay special attention to devices in unsecured areas where unauthorized individuals could access print trays or device settings. Many organizations discover they have “ghost printers”—devices still connected to the network that no one remembers authorizing.
2. Implement authentication before every print job. Secure print release—where documents don’t print until the user authenticates at the device—solves multiple problems simultaneously. It prevents sensitive documents from sitting in output trays where anyone can grab them. It creates an audit trail of who printed what and when. And it stops unauthorized print jobs cold.
3. Encrypt everything, everywhere. Print jobs should be encrypted in transit. Data stored on printer hard drives should be encrypted at rest. When devices are retired, those hard drives should be removed and destroyed—not donated with years of company data still recoverable.
4. Update firmware religiously and eliminate default credentials. Create a schedule for firmware updates and stick to it. Manufacturers regularly patch security vulnerabilities, but those patches don’t protect you if you never install them. Similarly, default passwords are the equivalent of putting a “rob me” sign on your front door. Change them. All of them. Today.
5. Consider Managed Print Services with integrated security. The reality is that most IT teams are already overwhelmed. Adding comprehensive print security management to their plate often means it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Modern Managed Print Services (MPS) programs have evolved far beyond toner delivery—they now include security monitoring, automated patch management, compliance reporting, and proactive threat detection. Organizations using MPS report 59% experiencing print-related security breaches compared to 66% of those without such services, suggesting that professional print security management delivers measurable protection.
The Zero Trust Mandate: Printers Can’t Hide Anymore
If you’re hearing more about Zero Trust architecture, there’s a reason. By 2026, Zero Trust is becoming the default security model. The old approach—trust devices inside the network perimeter, scrutinize those outside—has failed spectacularly in the age of hybrid work, cloud services, and sophisticated attacks.
Zero Trust operates on a simple principle: never trust, always verify. Every user, every device, every access request must be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated. There are no exceptions, no trusted zones, no devices that get a free pass because they’re “inside” the network.
For printers, this means fundamental changes:
- Every print job requires user authentication
- Device access is granted based on role and need, not network location
- All printer communications are encrypted and monitored
- Anomalous behavior triggers immediate alerts and automated responses
- Access permissions are continuously evaluated, not set once and forgotten
Organizations that embrace Zero Trust principles for print infrastructure aren’t just checking a compliance box. They’re building resilient systems that can withstand modern attacks. And as 70% of new remote access deployments shift from traditional VPNs to Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions, the printers that can’t participate in this framework become security liabilities.
Don’t Let Holiday Distractions Create 2026 Problems
Here’s what typically happens during the holiday season: security updates get postponed (“we’ll patch in January”), questionable access permissions remain in place (“we’ll review user access after the new year”), and that comprehensive print security audit you meant to schedule keeps sliding down the priority list.
Meanwhile, cybercriminals are working overtime. They know that distracted employees are more likely to fall for phishing attempts. They understand that skeleton IT crews during holiday weeks create longer response times. They’re counting on your organization to let its guard down.
Use this time wisely. The final weeks of 2025 offer a perfect opportunity to audit your print security posture before the challenges of 2026 arrive. That quiet period between Christmas and New Year’s, when business slows and you have time to think strategically? That’s when smart organizations strengthen their defenses, not when they relax them.
Your printers have been quietly vulnerable for years. Most organizations just didn’t know it—or didn’t want to think about it. But as print-related breaches climb, costs skyrocket, and regulatory scrutiny intensifies, ignorance is no longer a viable strategy.
The question isn’t whether you’ll address print security. The question is whether you’ll do it proactively or reactively after a breach forces your hand.
Moving Forward: Print Security as a Strategic Advantage
Organizations that get ahead of print security don’t just reduce risk—they build competitive advantages. They can confidently handle sensitive client data. They can demonstrate compliance to partners and regulators and onboard remote workers without creating security gaps. And when the inevitable security questionnaire arrives from a major customer or partner, they can answer “yes” to all the right questions.
Print security in 2026 isn’t about buying the most expensive devices or implementing the most complex protocols. It’s about applying the same rigorous security standards to printers that you already apply to servers, workstations, and mobile devices. It’s about recognizing that every networked device is an endpoint, and every endpoint requires protection.
As one security framework guide recently stated, “Printers aren’t ‘just office equipment.’ They’re endpoints—like laptops or servers—that require the same layered defenses.”
Start with the basics: audit your environment, update your firmware, change your passwords, encrypt your print jobs, and authenticate your users. Then work toward more sophisticated protections: Zero Trust integration, continuous monitoring, automated threat response, and comprehensive security management.
And if you’re not sure where to begin? That’s what the experts are for.
Don’t Wait for a Breach to Take Action
Schedule a FREE Print Security consultation with a Doceo Advisor today: Let's Talk
