From Hotel Printers to Home Offices: Securing the Last Endpoint You Forgot

When the headlines splashed across international news about sensitive U.S. State Department documents left sitting in a hotel printer on the eve of the Trump–Putin summit, the story practically wrote itself. Eight pages of schedules, menus, and meeting locations forgotten in a tray? Embarrassing. 

But here’s the real problem: it’s not just the documents left behind. It’s the fact that they were printed on a hotel printer at all. That mistake isn’t unique to diplomats—it’s a blind spot for nearly every organization with remote workers, business travelers, or hybrid staff. 

As LMG Security’s Director of Training & Research, Matt Durrin, put it during our Cyberside Chats podcast: “It’s not about the documents that are physically left on the printer. It’s about the documents electronically left on the printer as well.” 

Printers are more than “just office equipment.” They’re full-fledged computers with hard drives, operating systems, and stored credentials. Yet in too many organizations, they’re treated like a vacuum cleaner—plug them in, let them run, and forget about them. That’s a mistake that can cost you dearly.

Why Printers Are Still a Security Blind Spot

Modern multifunction printers (MFPs) don’t just spit out paper. They scan, store, and transmit documents. Every time you send a file, scan to email, or copy from the glass, that digital information is written to the printer’s hard drive.

During a forensic project, Durrin recovered a staggering 250,000 pages of documents—including tax returns, student records, and even yearbook photos—from just one used printer. And he’s not alone. A 60 Minutes investigation famously exposed how attackers could pull sensitive data from discarded printers.

The risk is compounded by today’s work-from-home reality. Employees routinely print HR forms, contracts, or financial statements on home devices that are rarely encrypted, never wiped, and often resold or donated with data still inside. If your workforce is scanning to personal email or printing at FedEx, your information could already be sitting in someone else’s inbox—or worse, on eBay.

Attackers Love Printers, Too

Printers are not just passive data leaks. They’re active targets for hackers. LMG’s penetration testing team regularly uses printers as a first point of entry into corporate environments. 

Why? Because:

• Default or weak passwords remain common.
• Many printers are unpatched, leaving them open to well-documented exploits.
• Saved email credentials allow attackers to access entire “sent folders” of scanned documents.

In one real-world test, an LMG penetration tester compromised a Lanier printer by exploiting its supervisor account, which existed solely to reset the admin password. Once inside, he gained access to the printer’s email account and retrieved a month’s worth of scanned files from the sent folder. 

If attackers are looking for the easiest way into your network, your unprotected printer might be it.

Five Key Steps to Lock Down Your Printer Risk

In good news, with a few intentional changes, you can shrink this blind spot dramatically. Here are the top five actions every security leader should take, drawn from LMG Security’s printer security research and recommendations. 

1. Reduce reliance on unmanaged printers. Stop creating unnecessary copies of sensitive data. Encourage the use of e-signature platforms like DocuSign instead of printing, signing, and scanning. Not only is it more secure, it reduces “data proliferation”—the spread of the same file across multiple devices and locations.
2. Update remote work policies to cover printing. Many organizations still don’t account for home or travel printing in their policies. Spell it out clearly: which types of documents can employees print at home, on the road, or not at all? This clarity prevents “shadow printing” where sensitive contracts or HR forms leak through unmanaged devices.
3. Require secure wiping or destruction of printer hard drives. Treat printers like laptops. Before disposal, ensure printer hard drives are securely wiped or destroyed. If your employees use personal printers for work, you need a plan for decommissioning those devices—or, better yet, prevent sensitive printing at home in the first place
4. Implement secure enterprise printing. Adopt authenticated release printing—essentially “MFA for printers.” A user must physically enter a code or badge at the machine before documents are released. This prevents “walk-away leaks” where a sensitive printout is grabbed by the wrong person. Consider enabling hard drive encryption on enterprise printers, too. While it may be a paid add-on from vendors, the cost is minor compared to a breach.
5. Train employees to think before they print. Awareness is half the battle, and ongoing employee cybersecurity training is crucial. Employees must understand that printers are computers that store sensitive data. As Sherri Davidoff put it in the podcast: “Your printer is not like the office vacuum. It could be a data risk.” Help your team see printing as a security decision, not just an administrative one.

Real-World Consequences

The Alaska hotel incident may have made headlines because of geopolitics, but the risks are just as real in everyday businesses. Imagine: 

• A financial institution whose loan officer prints tax documents at home. When she later sells the printer at a yard sale, thousands of client records go with it. 

• A law firm that forgets to wipe the hard drives of leased printers before return. The leasing company resells the devices, and a competitor scoops up confidential case files. 

• A hospital where staff print patient forms in unmanaged areas. Copies sit forgotten in trays, violating HIPAA and risking regulatory fines. 

None of these scenarios are hypothetical. Incidents like these have been documented for years in security research and news reports, including Dark Reading. 

Conclusion: Don’t Overlook the Humble Printer

Printers are computers. They store data, hold credentials, and open doors into your network. It’s time we stop treating them like dumb devices.

In the hierarchy of cybersecurity risks, printers rarely make the top five. But as the Trump–Putin summit fiasco showed, all it takes is one forgotten print job to spark headlines, or worse, a breach investigation. 

At LMG Security, we help organizations identify overlooked risks, from unmanaged endpoints to shadow printers, and create practical, enforceable policies that actually work. If you want to get ahead of threats like these, contact us for help assessing, designing, and implementing the right safeguards. 

Because the last thing you want is your data showing up in someone else’s print queue.