The printer in the corner rarely features in anyone's thinking about security, which is precisely why it deserves a mention. A modern office printer - especially a multifunction machine that also scans, copies and faxes - is not the simple device its predecessors were. It is effectively a small computer: it has a processor, memory and storage, it connects to the network, and in many cases it keeps copies of the documents that pass through it on an internal drive. That means the invoices, contracts, payroll runs, identity documents and confidential letters a business prints and scans may be sitting, in copy, inside a machine almost nobody thinks to secure or ever switches off.
Two things make this worth attention rather than alarm. First, because the printer is on the network, it is a device that connects to everything else - and networked devices that are forgotten tend to be the ones left with default settings and default passwords, running old software that is never updated. A machine that no one manages is a soft spot: reachable, unpatched, and trusted by the rest of the network simply because it has always been there. Second, the stored copies of documents mean the printer holds data long after the paper has been collected, which matters especially when the machine is eventually returned, sold, leased back or scrapped with that storage still full of whatever it printed.
The practical steps are modest and mostly one-off. Change the printer's default administrator password to something unique, just as you would any account, since a default password is no password at all. Keep its software updated when the manufacturer provides updates, the same discipline applied to computers and phones. If the machine stores copies of documents, find out where that setting lives and whether it can be limited or the stored data cleared regularly - and treat the internal storage as sensitive when the device leaves the business, wiping it before disposal or return exactly as you would a computer's hard drive. On the network side, there is rarely any reason for a printer to be reachable from the wider internet, so ensuring it is only accessible from inside the office closes an unnecessary door.
None of this requires expertise, and the point is not that printers are a dramatic danger but that they are a genuine, overlooked one - a networked computer full of the business's documents that almost no one includes in their security housekeeping. Bringing the printer into the same routine as every other device - a real password, current software, sensible network limits, and a wipe before it leaves - removes a quiet weakness at very little cost. The equipment most likely to be neglected is the equipment that has faded into the furniture, and few things fade into the furniture as completely as the office printer.