Posted by Jordan Pusey
True story. A friend of mine always used to keep the gate to his backyard secured with a heavy-duty padlock. Every time he wanted to mow the lawn, he had to run and get the key to unlock it. Every time his daughters wanted to ride their bikes on the sidewalk out front, he had to run and get the key to unlock it. Every time his wife wanted to carry something around the side of the house, he had to run and get the key to unlock it.
Eventually, he got tired of all the to-ing and fro-ing. He got complacent. He stopped securing the padlock.
Then he came out one morning to find the backyard gate wide open and a trail of fresh footsteps in the grass leading right to the garage—the place where he’d once kept all his expensive power tools and his family’s high-end bikes.
This troubling sequence of events doesn’t just play out at home. In the enterprise, we see the same kind of behavior toward secure printing. Admins lock down the environment at first, making sure that everything is tightly controlled. But then, as the days pass uneventfully and end users grumble about the slightest inconvenience, the restrictions get loosened. Authorization becomes more lax. Users get added in ways that are expedient rather than secure. Unclaimed print jobs are allowed to sit in the output tray for days on end. Complacency replaces vigilance. And then comes the shock and panic when that complacency is exploited.
At PrinterLogic, we understand how that happens because we know that secure printing solutions are only as strong as end users’ willingness to actually use them. To put it another way, if they have to run and get the padlock key every time they want to use secure printing, eventually they’re going to stop securing the padlock. That’s just as bad as having no secure printing solution at all.
That’s why we developed our secure pull printing solution to be as convenient and as easy to use as possible. With our Pull Printing module, your organization has the choice of three different ways to implement secure pull printing, and your end users never face more than two simple steps: Clicking “Print” as usual, followed by securely releasing the job from the queue once they’re at the printer. This intentional second step is what’s called “pull” (or “release”) printing.
PrinterLogic’s secure printing release methods are:
- Badge or card reader: After initiating the print job, the end user can walk over to the printer and swipe an ID badge or magnetic card to immediately release the print job associated with that badge/card. A large number of printers already have these readers built in, but there are a wide variety of external dongles that will integrate with the printer (usually via USB) to provide this secure printing functionality.
- Embedded control panel: In this scenario, admins can simply install the PrinterLogic app on any one of the many supported printer models. Users can then log in via the printer’s embedded control panel and release their print jobs. The advantage of this secure pull printing method is that it requires no additional hardware.
- Browser-based: PrinterLogic is unique among secure printing solutions in that it allows any device with a browser (e.g., PC, Mac, Chromebook, mobile device) to access its web-based portal and release authorized print jobs. The major advantage of this method is that the release device can be set in kiosk mode next to a dedicated printer, or it can be the user’s own personal device. That makes it especially convenient for users who travel from location to location within the organization.
In addition to being quick and easy to implement, PrinterLogic’s secure Pull Printing functionality integrates seamlessly with any print environment and can be adapted to suit even the most complex use cases. Above all, and unlike more cumbersome and less effective secure printing solutions, PrinterLogic’s incredible simplicity and flexibility helps prevent the slow settle into complacency when it comes to enterprise print security.