Your Wireless Printer Could Be the Weakest Link in Your Network
It is a Monday morning and you need to print a contract before a client meeting. You walk over to the printer, wait for it to warm up, and think nothing more of it. Most business owners treat their printer exactly like that - a background appliance, somewhere between the coffee machine and the filing cabinet. It rarely gets any security attention. That is exactly why hackers target it.
Printers sit on your network just like your computers and phones do. The difference is that most printers ship with weak default settings, rarely get updated, and almost never get the same scrutiny as a laptop. A research project by Cybernews demonstrated this clearly when it deliberately accessed nearly 28,000 unsecured printers worldwide - with a success rate of over 56%. Once in, an attacker does not just see what you are printing. They have a foothold on your network, which can mean access to shared files, email systems, and anything else connected to the same Wi-Fi.
For a small professional services business - a legal practice, an accountancy firm, a health clinic - this matters more than most people realise. Client documents, financial records, and sensitive correspondence all pass through or sit near the same network as that printer. Under the NZ Privacy Act 2020, a breach of personal information is not just an IT problem. It is a compliance and reputational problem. CERT NZ handles incident reporting if things go wrong, but the better outcome is making sure they do not.
Securing a printer is not complicated when someone is actually looking after it. The default login credentials that come with every new device should be changed immediately - manufacturers use the same defaults across thousands of units, and attackers know them all. Firmware updates, which control how the printer operates, need to be checked regularly just like any other software. The printer's own settings panel or the manufacturer's app is usually where these live, but they do not announce themselves the way a Windows update does. A firewall should be configured to monitor traffic to and from the printer, not just traffic from your computers. Most breaches that start this way are entirely preventable with the right controls in place.
Beyond those basics, the most effective step many businesses overlook is network separation. Most modern routers can run a secondary network - a guest network - that keeps the printer isolated from the devices holding your client data. Your team can still print to it, but if someone does get into the printer, they cannot easily move across to everything else. Unused connection ports on the printer itself should be disabled, and if the printer sits idle for days at a time, unplugging it when it is not needed removes the risk entirely. It is also worth understanding the less obvious ways attackers move through business networks once they have gained an initial foothold.
None of this needs to be managed by you personally. A managed IT support arrangement for professional services covers exactly this kind of configuration - making sure every device on your network, not just the obvious ones, is set up correctly and kept that way. If you are not sure whether your printer or any other networked device has been properly secured, that is worth finding out.
ITstuffed works with professional services businesses across Canterbury on exactly this kind of managed IT support. If you want a quick read on how we approach network security more broadly, our cyber security page covers the key areas. A 15-minute IT Fit Check is a good starting point if you are not sure where your setup currently stands - you can book one here.