The integration of network printers and multifunction peripherals in today's business environment makes it easy for people to reproduce information. However, unrestricted access to copy, print, scan, and fax products can put your department at risk. With an increased emphasis on security, government agencies need to focus on every device connected to their office networks, including connected digital MFPs and network printers.

The evolution of copiers into true, digital multifunction systems has been an asset to office productivity, allowing you to better manage documents. Nevertheless, if unprotected, these devices can create a breach in your security architecture, posing the security risk that unauthorized parties can gain access to your intellectual property and confidential information.

Most MFPs store image data in memory on hard disk drives, the kind used in PCs. And just like a PC, the latent image data remains until that disk sector is overwritten.

So, even if you think the data is deleted, that may not really be the case. The hard disk has a 'management data area' and a 'real data area', and when you delete data, you are only deleting data from the management data area, leaving the real data intact. This means that documents could be accessed from the unit's hard drive from a PC and reprinted...or worse, what happens if the unit's hard drive is replaced, moved or even outright stolen... who has that data now? That's why we've developed the Data Security Kit. This feature first encrypts and then overwrites latent image data used in Sharp's MFPs' system memory...mitigating this threat and helping to protect the confidentiality of your information.

This two-step process - the initial encryption combined with multiple overwrites of data, provides a higher level of security than many processes currently used by other manufacturers.

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