Many copiers send scans by email without encryption and keep copies of every job. Your IT company should already be managing this risk.
Copiers That Email in the Clear
Your bookkeeper scans a vendor invoice and sends it straight to the accountant. The copier turns that scan into an email and sends it across the internet with no encryption. Good IT already checks copier email settings and routes those jobs through secure Microsoft 365 accounts. If your current provider never looked at the copier, the scans travel in the open.
The same copier often keeps a full copy of every job on its hard drive. When a laptop leaves with a departing employee, that person may still hold access to old scans if the drive was never wiped. Solid IT tracks every device that touches the copier and removes access the same day the laptop walks out.
Stored Jobs on the Device
- Every scan stays on the copier until someone clears the memory.
- Old invoices with payment details sit on the machine for months.
- Service calls sometimes pull the drive without anyone from your office watching.
Good IT sets the copier to delete jobs after a short time and verifies the setting stays in place. If those jobs remain for weeks, the provider is not watching the device.
What Good IT Already Owns
Your IT company should know the copier model, its network path, and how it connects to email. They should also confirm that scan folders inside Microsoft 365 require the same login rules as every other account. When the copier sends an invoice to the bookkeeper, the path stays inside the protected system.
What we do Bellwether reviews copier configurations, routes scans through secure Microsoft 365 accounts, and removes stored jobs on a set schedule.
Signs Your Provider Is Not Handling It
The copier still shows a long list of past jobs when you check the screen. Scan emails arrive from the copier address instead of a company account. No one from IT has asked about the copier in the last year. These are the clear signals that the gap remains open.
A short walk through the office shows the machine sitting next to the bookkeeper desk. It handles every invoice and contract that leaves the building. When the IT company treats the copier as just another printer, those documents stay at risk.