This is an amazing, unbelievable – some would say shocking – revelation. Office copying machines contain hard disks that store an image of every page copied by the copier. The material is not encrypted, so if a burglar, corporate spy or identity theft ring gets hold of the copier’s hard disk, they can access a treasure trove of personal information about employees and clients. They can also access company financial information, trade secrets, pay checks… anything put on the copier is stored.

It is such an unbelievable claim that it is hard to make sense of it. So watch this video and see how it works:

How many pages can a copier store? With image compression, you can fit a decent scan of a page in half a megabyte. With a 100 gigabyte hard disk, the copier can store at least 200,000 pages. Don’t believe it? Here is a page from the newspaper compressed to fit in 480,000 bytes. Click on the image for full size.

This is page 2B of the Raleigh News and Observer, May 6 2010. You can see that the image is completely readable even with the heavy compression.

So what does this mean? At the very least, if you have a copier in your office you need to secure it. You may want to talk to your vendor about removing the hard drive. And you definitely cannot sell the copier without removing that hard drive.

If your copier also serves as a printer, it is storing printed pages too.

It also means that you should avoid using public copiers for anything sensitive – the public copier will keep a copy. You should not use an office copier for anything personal, or the office has a copy of it.

Why would a copier have a hard disk? Because a “copier” is now part of the office network. See this article for a perspective:

Is there a Superhero Hiding Inside your Copier?

We’re still calling them copiers, but the reality is most office copiers today are sophisticated IT resources. However, there are quite a few businesses that simply don’t realize there’s a superhero hiding inside their “copier.” While everyone depends on their machines to churn out prints and copies, advanced features and software applications under the hood are helping automate business processes and allow users to integrate their copier with other IT devices.

Thanks to new customizable software platforms and other advanced workflow tools, businesses can use their multifunction printers (MFPs) as a one-stop shop for most of their document needs. The latest generation of MFPs has the ability to scan, store, and share information from one easy-to-use device. This allows businesses large and small to maximize their return on investment and operate more efficiently.

For more info see:
- How Photocopiers Work
- How Scanners Work