Managed Print Services providers focus primarily on hardware uptime and toner replenishment rather than the continuous operationalization of critical cyber hygiene. For many years, the security spotlight has shone brightly on primary endpoints, leading to a sophisticated ecosystem of protection for laptops, smartphones, and servers. However, as the technological environment of 2026 matures, a massive class of secondary endpoints—specifically printers and connected Internet of Things devices—remains dangerously exposed. These machines represent a forgotten attack surface that does not fit the standard mold of IT assets, often operating in a gray area where security protocols are rarely applied with consistency. The irony of modern cybersecurity is that while the front door is heavily bolted, the side windows represented by these low-risk peripherals are frequently left wide open. Modern printers are essentially powerful, networked computers equipped with administrator-level access to sensitive systems, including email servers, file storage, and directory services. Despite these capabilities, they are seldom managed with the same rigor as a standard workstation, creating a significant blind spot where an unpatched device can serve as an ideal entry point for lateral movement across a corporate network.
The Anatomy of Hidden Risks
The Organizational Gap: Departmental Fragmentation
One of the primary reasons these devices remain vulnerable is the fragmentation of responsibility within the modern enterprise structure. In many organizations, the oversight for printer and IoT hardware is awkwardly split between various departments, including supply chain, information technology, and cybersecurity teams. The supply chain department typically focuses on procurement and managed print services contracts, while the IT department handles the underlying network infrastructure. Meanwhile, the information security team is often preoccupied with high-level enterprise risk and the protection of core data repositories. Because no single entity effectively owns the cybersecurity health of the device fleet, these machines are frequently left in their factory-default states with default passwords and open communication ports. This lack of clear ownership means that basic security measures, such as disabling unnecessary services or changing administrator credentials, are often overlooked during the deployment phase. When responsibility is diffused, accountability vanishes, and the result is an environment where thousands of active devices exist on the network without any ongoing security governance or configuration management. Automated scanning tools used by malicious actors can easily identify these neglected assets, turning them into beachheads for broader network infiltration.
The Cultural Fallacy: Analog Perception in a Digital World
Beyond organizational hurdles, a persistent cultural myth continues to shield secondary endpoints from necessary scrutiny, leading many executives to view printers as simple, analog-adjacent devices. There is a widespread belief that because these machines produce physical paper, they are somehow disconnected from the digital threats that plague more traditional computing assets. This just a printer fallacy ignores the reality that modern multi-function devices are sophisticated nodes on the network, capable of processing, storing, and transmitting massive amounts of sensitive data. Furthermore, some leaders mistakenly believe that the ongoing transition toward paperless environments renders printer security investment unnecessary. In practice, the move to a fully digital workflow is a slow and complex process, and while the volume of physical printing might decrease, the devices themselves remain connected and active on the network. Another common misconception involves the assumption that a managed service agreement inherently includes cybersecurity protections. However, the operational goals of a standard service provider—uptime, maintenance, and supply replenishment—are fundamentally different from the goals of a security program. This misunderstanding creates a dangerous false sense of security, leaving organizations blind to the fact that their managed fleet is often completely unprotected from even basic cyberattacks.
Implementing Operational Security
Strategic Visibility: Establishing the Security Baseline
Securing the expansive IoT attack surface begins with the establishment of an evergreen inventory that tracks every connected device in real-time. Traditional static spreadsheets are insufficient for managing dynamic fleets where new devices are added, retired, or moved across different office locations with high frequency. To maintain a defensible security posture, organizations must move beyond simple discovery and toward a model of continuous monitoring that establishes a known good baseline for every device type. This involves documenting specific security settings, firmware versions, and communication protocols that are authorized for use within the corporate environment. Once a baseline is established, the focus shifts to drift detection—the process of identifying unauthorized or accidental changes to device configurations. Drift can occur during routine maintenance, following a power outage, or as a result of a malicious actor attempting to weaken a device’s defenses. Without a proactive system to monitor for these deviations, a security gap can remain open for months before it is discovered. Automated remediation processes then ensure that any identified drift is corrected immediately, returning the device to its hardened state without requiring manual intervention from an already overstretched IT staff.
Technical Hardening: Lifecycle and Certificate Management
Effective defense for secondary endpoints also demands a rigorous approach to lifecycle management, particularly concerning machine identity and communication security. As enterprises adopt more stringent security standards, the use of digital certificates and 802.1X authentication has become essential for verifying the identity of every device on the network. However, many legacy printer fleets and IoT devices were not designed with these modern protocols in mind, making their implementation a significant technical challenge. Managing the lifecycle of these certificates—ensuring they are correctly issued, renewed, and applied—is a labor-intensive task that often falls by the wayside. Furthermore, the rotation of administrative credentials and passwords across a heterogeneous fleet of thousands of devices is virtually impossible to manage manually. A specialized operational program addresses these complexities by automating the management of machine identities, ensuring that every printer or camera is properly authenticated before it is allowed to communicate with sensitive network segments. Additionally, firmware maintenance is a critical component of this hardening process, as it mitigates known vulnerabilities that hackers frequently exploit. By treating these devices with the same technical rigor as a primary server, enterprises can transform a vulnerable peripheral into a secure, governed component of their infrastructure.
Navigating the Future Threat Landscape
Artificial Intelligence: The Catalyst for Advanced Threats
The urgency of securing the IoT surface is underscored by the rapid evolution of the threat landscape in 2026, where artificial intelligence has become a standard tool for both defenders and attackers. Malicious actors are increasingly utilizing automated AI scripts to conduct large-scale reconnaissance and exploit unpatched or poorly configured devices at a speed that manual defense cannot match. These AI-driven attacks can identify subtle vulnerabilities in a device’s firmware or configuration across a diverse network in a matter of seconds. As enterprises transition toward Zero Trust architectures, the ability to push identity verification down to the individual machine level becomes a non-negotiable requirement for security. A Zero Trust model assumes that no device, regardless of its location or function, can be trusted by default. This shift places an immense burden on organizations with older, diverse fleets of printers and cameras that may not natively support the necessary security protocols. Without a centralized management system that can bridge the gap between legacy hardware and modern security requirements, these devices become significant liabilities that can undermine an otherwise robust Zero Trust strategy. The challenge lies in maintaining the operational integrity of the business while simultaneously implementing these necessary security layers, which often requires a highly structured and specialized approach to project management.
Operational Resilience: Scaling Beyond the Print Fleet
While printers currently represent the most complex and mature category of secondary endpoints, the lessons learned from securing them provide a vital blueprint for other neglected IoT categories. Networked cameras, smart building controls, and industrial sensors share many of the same risk profiles: they are numerous, highly connected, and frequently ignored by standard IT security programs. As the density of IoT devices continues to increase within the corporate environment, the need for a programmatic, outcome-based security model becomes even more critical. Many organizations struggle with the heterogeneity of their fleets—the vast mix of brands, ages, and firmware capabilities that make a one-size-fits-all security tool ineffective. A truly resilient defense must be able to handle this diversity without disrupting the essential services these devices provide. For example, in a healthcare setting, the hardening of a printer fleet or a camera network must be executed with extreme care to avoid interfering with patient care or data delivery. This requires a Done-For-You service model that focuses on actual security outcomes rather than just providing a dashboard of alerts. By taking ownership of the execution—managing the firmware updates, certificate renewals, and configuration corrections—a specialized program allows the internal IT team to focus on strategic initiatives while the organization’s invisible attack surface is systematically closed.
The Path Toward Sustainable Cyber Governance
The industry moved past the era of viewing printers and IoT devices as mere peripherals and recognized them as critical components of the corporate attack surface. Enterprises that successfully secured these forgotten endpoints did so by moving away from indifferent management styles and adopting proactive, operationalized security frameworks. They prioritized the creation of accurate, real-time inventories and established rigorous baselines that prevented configuration drift from undermining their defenses. By automating the management of machine identities and firmware updates, these organizations were able to satisfy the strict requirements of Zero Trust architectures while maintaining high levels of operational uptime. The implementation of specialized service models allowed internal teams to offload the labor-intensive tasks of certificate lifecycle management and credential rotation to experts who focused specifically on the nuances of diverse hardware fleets. Furthermore, the lessons learned from securing complex print environments were effectively applied to other connected assets, such as networked cameras and industrial sensors, creating a unified and resilient security posture across the entire enterprise. This transition not only mitigated the risk of lateral movement by malicious actors but also provided the necessary governance evidence for compliance and risk management teams. Ultimately, the shift toward a professionalized operational model transformed secondary endpoints from a liability into a hardened, invisible asset class that supported the broader goals of modern cybersecurity.
