Jim LaRoe is Symphion’s dynamic CEO with a special combination of skills, experience and insight that has driven Symphion’s success since inception to the world’s leader in print fleet cyber security. Symphion’s focus has been on continual innovation, seamless delivery, affordability of its solutions and a dedication to excellence in customer service.
In today’s interview, Jim discusses the hidden risks in print fleets and why they matter for enterprise security. If an insider intended to inflict harm on a business, the first stop would be the business’ printers. According to Jim, they are the softest targets of all and are jackpots for bad actors and it only takes one printer to bring down an entire business with a front-page news event or quietly stealing valuable data or just plain sabotage. It starts with the fact that printers receive, transmit, process and store the business’ and its customers’ most sensitive data.
M.R. Rangaswami: Why are print fleets still a risk in 2026, and why are they often overlooked?
Jim LaRoe: “Every criminal loves winning lottery numbers. For printer endpoints (any device that creates an image, electronic or otherwise), those numbers are 20-99-1-360-67.” Allow me to explain why.
– 20: They account for 20% of known network endpoints.
– 99: Ninety-nine percent of them are completely unprotected, managed at open factory defaults, including admin passwords published on the internet.
– 1: It only takes one unprotected printer to take down an entire business.
– 360: The threat landscape is 360 degrees, ranging from exposed to the internet with devices “phoning home” to the OEM to stored adjacent system admin passwords to physical USB port walk-up access.
– 67: One leading analyst surveyed businesses, and 67% of the 2,000 surveyed reported a printer-related security event in the past year.
For a long time, the ethical hackers have talked about how easy printers are to exploit. Now you add in AI-enabled hacks where the AI already knows each exploit and admin password. It’s like pouring jet fuel on a raging fire of risk. They’re overlooked because of the 5 O’s.
- Origin: They started as analog devices and are still viewed as business equipment procured and managed by supply chain instead of the complex computing devices that they are.
- Owner: There is no owner of printer endpoint protection, no budget, no enforcement. This is our biggest lift–communicating with prospects.
- Organization: The organization is not there. They have not decided to protect these forgotten network endpoints, there are no audits beyond minimal external pen tests and even if there is a control set, there is no enforcement. Most don’t even have an accurate inventory.
- IOT-Printers are Internet of Things devices. There has been no common management platform for security. Each brand, model and firmware version is different with different configurability and that can change with an update.
- Opportunity: Printers are not career advancing technology for anybody including the leaders that would ask for a budget to protect them. They are perceived graveyard endpoints. There is no available talent pool beyond toner and break fix skill sets even when protection is chosen. Also, everybody thinks that they’re digitized, like in healthcare with EMR. Nothing could be further from the truth, with printers supporting core business functions in businesses like patient care delivery.
M.R.: Where do organizations most often fall short when it comes to securing print fleets that are otherwise considered “managed”?
Jim: Many fleets are “managed”; they’re just managed for print service delivery costs, such as toner supplies, break-fix, and new devices. They confuse managed for cost with managed for protection.
While the features to harden printers are built in and there are well-established standards for securing them, those capabilities are rarely applied in practice. That’s problematic because printers receive, transmit, process, and store some of the most protected and sensitive information in the enterprise, have trusted access to systems like LDAP, email, and file servers, and yet are largely unmonitored.
The multi-billion-dollar, very mature “managed print services” industry competes in a highly commoditized, cost-driven market largely run by supply chains. At best, providers take a “set and forget” approach, configuring devices at installation and never revisiting protections. Most fleets are left at factory defaults for ease of operation. Nobody is auditing. Even when information security mandates controls, they often stall in an RFP and are never fully implemented or validated. Meanwhile, OEMs tout security features that ultimately go unused. The outcome is predictable: printers remain dark, over trusted, and under-protected, even in organizations with otherwise strong security programs.
That’s the gap we focus on closing.
M.R.: What is the practical first step organizations should take to reduce this risk?
Jim: It’s organizational. Assign an owner. Allocate a budget. Design a protection program that fits your budget, your business, your regulatory mandates, and get rolling. The printers aren’t going away, and the stakes continue to get higher. We’re on a mission to raise awareness of this issue and what can be done to address it. I do 45-minute consults every day with businesses owning large print fleets. We discuss their goals, constraints, the options, approximate
M.R. Rangaswami is the Co-Founder of Sandhill.com