From Heartbleed to hacking, security is one of the greatest challenges IT administrators face today. It is easy to neglect how much printing can affect the security of your environment-- with so much time spent securing information while it exists on your device or machine, users often forget that printing that same information can result in a security breach too. Tricerat gives IT administrators several new tools in the battle against unsecured environments.
When printing, there are two main sources of security issues. The first is when the print job is sent from the user's session to the printer, traveling in the network between computers. Tricerat's Simplify Printing offers print job encryption to ensure your job will be secure while it is being transferred to the server that the printer is connected to. Encryption keys can be set at each print server, so that if network traffic is observed your documents will remain secure.
The second source of security issues occurs once the job has been printed. If someone reaches the printer before you do, they could see sensitive information without anyone knowing or even take the printed document. Several printers offer secure print or locked print features requiring printing users to enter a code to retrieve their document, preventing this security risk. However, these features are part of the private driver data that is driver specific and often has an undocumented implementation. This causes many printing solutions that manage printer drivers to not be able to implement these features.
To combat this, Tricerat's Simplify Printing offers advanced print feature functionality, where our printer selections contain an option to open the manufacturer's driver dialog without needing to install the manufacturer's driver on that server. This allows for the use of features such as secure or locked print while the printer driver can stay safely on the single print server that contains the printer, where it remains easy to manage. Tricerat's ScrewDrivers software built to virtualize client printers offers similar functionality with its second print dialog feature.
If you need overall security for your environment, Tricerat's Simplify Lockdown can also assist. Simplify Lockdown contains the capability of blocking processes and executables as someone attempts to run them. When this occurs, the user who has attempted to run the blocked process will see a customizable message informing them that the process has been blocked. Processes can be blocked by name, argument, or checksum, preventing users from getting around security by simply renaming the process. Simplify Lockdown contains two modes, a banned blacklist mode and a trusted whitelist mode. The trusted mode blocks any executable not assigned to the trusted list, providing the ultimate in security, a tool to ensure that you are in control of any process that runs on your system.
Building this list of processes can be cumbersome, so Simplify Lockdown includes a tool known as Learn Mode. Learn Mode obtains a list of processes that are normally run and simplifies adding them to the trusted list. If trusted mode is too cumbersome for your environment, you may be better suited to use banned mode. Simplify Lockdown's banned mode blocks any executable assigned to the banned list, providing needed security without much hassle. Both the trusted list and the banned list can be customized for different users and groups.
In short, Tricerat has your printing security needs covered. Learn more about our suite of products here or get in touch with our team to discuss your environment and the best way to protect it by calling 1 (800) 582-5167 or writing us at sales@tricerat.com. We offer comprehensive product demos and free 30-day trials so that you can be sure you're secure.
