Imaging giant Canon on Monday unveiled the third generation of its imageRUNNER ADVANCE multifunction printers (MFP). The company says the latest edition introduces significant cybersecurity features designed to help organizations protect their assets.
According to Canon, third generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE devices introduce security information event management (SIEM) integration, which makes it easier for enterprises to include printers in their existing security monitoring systems. The company says many organizations rely on manual work to import data from their printers, or they simply don’t include printers in SIEM monitoring.
Canon says this is the first line of its MFPs to incorporate SIEM integration. It’s worth noting that HP and Lexmark have already been offering device-level SIEM integration.
In addition to SIEM integration, imageRUNNER ADVANCE printers introduce a feature called Verify System at Startup, which uses a Root of Trust in order to protect the device’s firmware, boot code, and applications against unauthorized changes.
The products also include automatic security certificate updates, whose goal is to reduce the burden on IT teams, Canon says.
The company claims it plans of continuing to enhance security in its products in the coming months, including by adding runtime detection for further protection against intrusions.
Third generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE MFPs are expected to become available in the coming months.
“Enterprises are in a transformative time, and the harsh reality is that with such disruptive innovation can come hacks, data attacks, and other security vulnerabilities that pose risk to an organization’s confidential information,” commented Shinichi Yoshida, executive VP and GM at Canon USA, Inc. “We integrated new security features at the design level of the new imageRUNNER ADVANCE models to help equip our customers with a comprehensive enterprise solution that can help improve business efficiency.”
Researchers demonstrated on several occasions in the past that insecure and misconfigured printers can expose organizations to attacks.
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Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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