The Security Mentor

I'm not talking about wrong numbers, though some businesses have embarrassed themselves by faxing sensitive information to the wrong person. That's easy to avoid. Double-check phone numbers before you use them, and follow a procedure for responding when someone tells you you're faxing them someone else's medical history.

This post is about a different problem with fax machines.

You already know, if you're security-aware, that you need to run special software to erase hard drives on old computers before you sell or dispose of them. Writer Judy Monchuk points out

• Everything is a computer these days
• That includes fancy fax machines>
• High end fax machines include hard disks
• Those hard disks keep copies of incoming and outgoing faxes
• Lots of these fax machines are leased
• At the end of the lease the machines go back to the leasing company

When the leasing company gets the machine back they may sell it into the secondhand market, so your old faxes could wind up anywhere.

The lowest-tech defense is to insist on buying the hard disk at the end of the lease.

How can you avoid getting caught by surprise by issues like this? Hire a security consultant who has a set of checklists and a knack for lateral thinking.