There should be a multi-function printer in every home.

I mean,

• You own 15 pairs of sneakers that cost $250 and up.
• Your overly expensive clothing and shoes bear the name of people who wouldn’t give you the time of day.
• The leased vehicle outside your door costs you an arm and a leg every month, and you pray you neither get into an accident nor get keyed by a jealous friend or neighbor.
• The television in your living room is bigger than Sputnik.

But there’s no multi-function printer in your home.

What is a Multi-Function Printer?

With a good multi-function printer enabling you can:

• print either in color or black and white,
•  send and receive faxes,
•  scan documents to one or more computers on your network.
• automatically feed up to 35 pages (ADF)
• read and print two-sided documents
• resize documents

Why owning a multi-function printer is necessary today.

If you are scanning and emailing unencrypted documents containing your social security number, date of birth, or any other information cybercriminals can use, you might as well just call the cybercrooks and say, “Here’s my list of passwords and other confidential information. Have fun with it.”

Also, if you use any printing services offered by local office supply or mailing service stores, ask if their printers contain hard drives that keep copies of every copied or scanned document.

You may ask “why, what’s the big deal?”  Many of those machines are leased. When they go off-lease, many firms upgrade to better machines with more bells and whistles. What happens, you may wonder, to the off-lease machines?  In many cases, they and the hard drives containing your personal and business information are sold, often to the overseas markets. There was an actual case where a scavenger salvaged parts from discarded copy machines in another part of the world, only to discover a ton of information on the hard drive they planned to use to build computers.

The information on the hard drives was subsequently sold to local criminal organizations to acquire credit cards and establish other lines of credit to make enormous and untraceable purchases. Worse, they sold the information on the Dark Web.

No matter how you look at it, you can ruin your financial life with just one email.

Enter Your Multi-Function Printer

For my money, faxing is the safest way to transmit sensitive documents. Many presenters at several insurance and accounting industry cybercrime webinars suggest the use of faxes only. The problem? Most people no longer own either a stand-alone or multi-function printer, scanner, or fax machine. So they opt for email as the easiest choice.

What does a multifunction machine cost?

First, I suggest machines from either HP (full disclosure, it’s my favorite brand) or Brother. My suggestions are based on expert guidance, reviews, and my personal and business experience. A good model is the HP 9025e. I suggest you check out websites like Zdnet.com or cnet.com for unbiased product reviews.

Good inkjet multi-function printers are in the  $100 to $600 price range. You can also opt for a laser multi, either color or black and white. I’ve always found it wise to pair a black and white laserjet printer with a color inkjet multifunction printer in my office.

Whatever you decide, it’s always a good time to protect your identity.