With a new tablet-like user experience, Xerox AltaLink Multifunction Printers make completing daily tasks faster and easier with a customizable home screen
Xerox knows that the next best thing to having a junkyard dog stalking the perimeter of your AltaLink MFP, thus ensuring its security, is to have one built into the device…sans the mess and noise associated with an actual canine.
The venerable manufacturer recently made software enhancements to their Workplace Assistants—enabled with ConnectKey technology—that allows companies to monitor their critical security settings and automatically reset unauthorized changes, thus curtailing security breaches. The Configuration Watchdog enables administrators to monitor the compliance requirements of up to eight security settings. When Configuration Watchdog detects unauthorized changes, it will remediate them to their compliance state. Admins will receive notification alerts if the unapproved changes could not be remediated.
According to Zia Masoom, director of worldwide product marketing for Xerox, Configuration Watchdog is a feature within the utility that monitors a company’s security settings such as McAfee Whitelisting, data encryption, disc/job overwrite, audit logs and scan to USB—settings that are mostly enabled when shipped to the customer. These clients will enable or disable functions based on company policies/needs.
Configuration Access Issues
The challenge many customers explained to Xerox is that typically a company will have more than one person will have the admin password, thus be able to access different configurations for the AltaLink devices, including the security settings. For example, in addition to the IT administrator, someone in charge of training may have password access. If others with admin access are not familiar with the security policies, they may inadvertently change the security settings, Masoom notes. Now, once the settings are initially engaged, Configuration Watchdog will provide immediate notifications and remediations for both inadvertent and malicious changes.
Zia Masoom, Xerox
The alerts will also indicate if remediation is unsuccessful, although Masoom is confident this will be more of an exception than the rule. “(The alerts) are an added level of comfort that if remediation doesn’t work, at least the system admin will be notified.”
Unlike other software such Xerox’s Device Manager, which is a separate tool that requires a server, Configuration Watchdog is embedded in the base software of each AltaLink MFP (the free upgrade is available here).
“What’s important to most customers is they want to have the ability to monitor security settings right on the device, they don’t want to buy a separate security software to monitor settings,” Masoom said. “They don’t want to have another server set up, as is the case of third-party options that are available.”
The latest AltaLink enhancements enable companies to meet NIST 800-171 standards, which govern the security of data in non-federal information systems and organizations.
“Cybersecurity threats are becoming more sophisticated and so is Xerox’s response,” said Dr. Alissa J. Abdullah, chief information security officer, Xerox. “We take a proactive approach to device, data and document security that puts organizations on the offensive when it comes to threat detection and response.”
For additional protection, the AltaLink MFPs include support for ThinPrint print management software, featuring end-to-end encryption, as well as efficient compression and streaming of print data, delivering faster output speeds.
AltaLink delivers new time-saving features
Tracey Koziol,
Xerox Corp.
With a tablet-like user experience, AltaLink makes completing daily tasks faster and easier with new features such as:
Customizable home screen: enables touchscreen re-ordering of frequently used apps and features to place the most popular ones at the top for easy access.
1-Touch App: simplifies complicated and lengthy workflows by creating shortcuts, such as scanning to email without typing an email address or creating booklets with a single touch; these 1-Touch Apps can be cloned and shared among multiple devices.
Fleet Orchestrator: automatically deploys software upgrades and tedious configuration changes across multiple devices. A single device, designated as the host, securely shares updates with the remaining fleet, reducing device downtime and manual IT intervention.
“These updates articulate and demonstrate Xerox’s commitment to securing information and simplifying business processes for our customers,” said Tracey Koziol, senior vice president, Global Offerings, Xerox. “Our Workplace Assistants boost IT management efficiency and employee productivity.”
