Photocopiers and "intelligent" printers are a new ID theft threat.

Who would have guessed that a quick trip to the local copy center would be the next ID theft threat?

It's true. And apparently it has been true for the last few years and has only recently made its way to the mainstream news.

Here's how it works: most digital copiers and intelligent printers that were manufactured in the last five years come with an embedded hard drive. The purpose of the hard drive is to store the data before it is copied or printed. And unless the owner (the local copy center or your place of business) has security measures in place - such as changing the default password used to access the hard drive or has enabled encryption - then your copied or printed data is just sitting there waiting to be exploited.

Further, if your place of work uses these unsecured multifunction printers in the office, they are open to attack via any modem (commonly used for faxing) connected to them.

No big deal if you are just making copies of next Saturday's yard sale flyer, but a huge deal if you are making copies or printing out your tax returns or other sensitive documents.

One copier manufacturer's survey found that the majority of people had no clue that photocopiers stored images of what was being duplicated.

The same manufacturer does offer security kits that address this issue - let's hope that our favorite copy and print centers utilize them - one should inquire before copying or printing personal or identifying information.

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