Kennesaw, Ga. - Heidelberg USA urges printers to prioritize their cyber-security, especially when it comes to protecting the integrity of their Prinect workflow system. As a resource for users who also take security seriously and wish to safeguard their Prinect investment, Heidelberg has published a new white paper, “Anti-Virus and Your Prinect Workflow,” available for download here.

Security is a key concern for businesses in today’s digital world. Printers typically handle an influx of files from many sources, originating in multiple locations. For printing businesses that fail to take adequate steps to protect their workflows from cyber-attack, one hiccup could bring their entire system crashing to a halt. Printers, like any business, need to proactively prevent breaches before they happen by improving their readiness in the event of such an attack. These proactive printers then can market their reliable and secure system as a value-added to their customers.

Fully protecting your business calls for a multi-pronged approach, including the use of anti-virus software at workstations, servers and firewalls across the shop. How secure is your Prinect workflow?

Threat Landscape

A virus infestation can lead to lost or destroyed data, stolen confidential information, unplanned downtime, and ultimately, system degradation. As a result, you’ll be forced to spend time and money to identify and eliminate the cause and prevent future attacks. In extreme cases, a virus could propagate outside of your business, infecting your customers, vendors, or an employee’s home computer. Areas of vulnerability include:

1.  Failure to implement protection across your shop.
2. Using Prinect workflow servers to surf the web or to access non-business emails.
3. Non-secure acceptance of jobs from print buyer.
4. Employees who bring their own devices to work and connect them to your plant network.

 Not only can you use anti-virus software on your Prinect workflow products, but Heidelberg USA also strongly recommends using anti-virus software for Heidelberg prepress products as well as throughout the rest of your plant. You also should keep the software and Virus Definition files (DAT) up-to-date to prevent so-called “zero-day” attacks that exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities in an application or operating system.

Because running anti-virus software can negatively affect critical components of Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow, as well as consume CPU cycles and use up memory—Heidelberg recommends performance testing before and after installing anti-virus software to determine whether there are any negative effects on computers running Prinect workflow software.

Prinect Security Analysis

The best way to survive an attack is to prepare for it in the first place:  

• Establish a standard for your plant that includes anti-virus protection.
• Be well informed. Help set expectations correctly and make sure you get the best return on investment (ROI) and the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) on your Prinect Workflow systems.
•  Protect your assets by minimizing your exposure to breaches and unplanned downtime.
• Secure sensitive customer and employee information and data.

Heidelberg offers consulting, training and technical resources that can help print shops identify security holes and protect their businesses. These include Heidelberg’s Prinect IT Services, which helps users create secure, optimized solutions from prepress to press and postpress operations. Printers who download “Anti-Virus and Your Prinect Workflow”also will receive a special offer for a Remote Security Check that can help identify and rectify existing security holes. An on-site version of the Security Check is also available.