Here is the latest Copier News, from Copitex, Boston’s Leader in Copier Sales, Rentals & Leasing.
Canon settles data breach lawsuit
- Article in Actionable Intelligence magazine states that Canon has decided to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the company after a data breach exposed information on large number of former and current employees
- The lawsuit alleged negligence after a ransomware attack hit Canon in mid-2020
- Information exposed included Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, financial account numbers, etc.
- Settlement amount not yet published
Canon admits another MFP/printer security issue
- Published bulletin to its dealers regarding a “buffer overflow vulnerability” in some of its laser printers and MFPs
- Hackers could use to execute arbitrary code and/or Denial-of-Service attacks
- Firmware apparently now available to fix vulnerability
Canon & Fujifilm win production print contracts
- Award from Regal Press of Norwood, Massachusetts
- Installed a new Canon varioPRINT i300 production color inkjet system and a Fujifilm J Press production color inkjet system
Kodak Alaris scanner wins BLI award
- Keypoint Intelligence awarded a Buyers Lab (BLI) 2023 Pick Award to the Kodak Alaris S3140 Max Scanner
- Top scores after 6 months of lab testing
- Top scan speed of 140ipm
Laser printer market growth
- Research published by Technavio Inc
- Laser printer market size to increase by $4.016 billion by 2027
- CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) of 5.67%
Toshiba close to being acquired?
- Bloomberg News is reporting that Toshiba is planning a special committee meeting next week to discuss buyout offer from JIP
- JIP, aka Japanese Industrial Partners, is a government led group which has been working to gather bank financing
- Takeover would value Toshiba at $16.2 billion
- Reporting that JIP is close to securing 1.2 trillion yen from Japanese banks needed to close deal
- JIP may lower the Toshiba’s valuation from the planned 2.2 trillion yen ($16.09 billion) to levels below 2 trillion yen, the Nikkei Business Daily
- Even though JIP has secured funding worth 1 trillion yen in equity from domestic companies and 1.2 trillion yen in loans from major banks, it may cut the valuation in light of a recent deterioration in Toshiba’s earnings and the need for post-buyout working capital, the Nikkei said.
Sharp to have booth at huge trade show
- Sharp, a division of Foxconn of Taiwan (aka Hon Hai Precision), announced it will have large booth at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada on 1/5-8/2023
- Products on display will include:
- LC-LH Indoor Photovoltaic device, uses liquid and crystal light harvesting technology with solar cells to convert indoor light into electricity
- Perovskrite Solar Cell
- Automotive Passenger Seat Monitoring, using viewing angle control display, which allows front seat passenger to view entertainment on a display, with driver being unable to see it to avoid distraction
- Automotive Driver Monitoring detects driver’s line of sight, head position, orientation and eye blink pattern to ascertain status of driver
- Automotive Click Display using convex or concave shapes on dashboard for easy driver control of features such as volume control, navigation system, air conditioning, etc.
- Automotive Solar Cells
- Head-Mounted Display
- World’s Thinnest Ultra-Compact Camera Module
- Compact ToF Distance Sensor
- And will re-enter the HDTV market in the US with AQUOS XLED TVs, including a model that is 120”
Dealer acquisition/merger update
- Mega dealer, UBEO, headquartered in Austin, Texas, announced it has acquired COECO Office Systems, headquartered in Rocky Mount, North Carolina
- COECO has 9 locations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia
- UBEO already had locations in 14 states and over 1,200 employees
- ManagedPrint, a division of Novatech, announced it is opening a new location in Greenville, SC
- Was recently awarded position on the State of South Carolina contract for HP printers
Xerox wins lawsuit against school district
- The U.S. District County of New Jersey ordered the Orange Board of Education to pay Xerox
$276,451.63 in damages
- Xerox had alleged that the district had defaulted on 3 leases for Xerox production print devices.
Xerox launches new app for its MFPs
- Now offering “Xerox Easy Assist” for IOS and Android mobile devices
- Manage device from smart phone
- Real time monitoring of device performance
- Instant access to self-support services
- Browse and print documents from app
- Monitor supply levels
- Reorder supplies
- Manage device password
Ricoh to offer new solution
- Announced partnership with Alarm Box, maker of cloud-based credit management solutions
- Initially will only be marketed in Japan
Ricoh wins BLI solution awards
- Keypoint Intelligence gave out Buyers Lab Software Pick of 2023 awards to:
- Ricoh Smart Integration (its app marketplace for its MFPs)
- Ricoh Streamline NX v3 (remote fleet management, secure print and scanning suite)
Environmental group gives out awards
- The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) published its “A List” of companies it considers as global leaders in response to “climate change”
- The following document imaging companies made the list:
- Konica Minolta
- HP
- Epson
- Fujifilm
- Ricoh
- Xerox
Fujifilm new models to have more security features
- (currently makes most Xerox-branded models, but unknown if this relationship will continue)
- Announced that future models, starting with new 65ppm and 75ppm A3 b/w laser MFPs will include:
- NIST SP800-171 security standard compatibility
- WPA3 wireless security protocol compatibility
- TPM 2.0 security chip (latest encryption standard)
Production print market growth
- Research published by Fortune Business Insights
- Digital production printer industry will have CAGR (cumulative annual growth rate) of 12.6%
- Projected to reach $5.939 billion by 2025
Gen Z buying behavior study
- Conducted by Wunderman Thompson Intelligence
- Gen Z is people born from years 1997 to 2012
- 60% of Gen z buyers say that brands they shop for are an expression of who they are
- 60% say that sustainability is an important factor in purchase decisions
- 33% will pay more for sustainable products
- 73% say it is hard to save money right now
- 56% say inflation created more financial stress in their lives
Adobe releases original PostScript code
- Celebrating their 40th anniversary, Adobe Corp. released the source code of PostScript v0.10 to the Computer History Museum
- Originally a project that began in Xerox’s famed PARC to help print to first digital copier.
- Employees left PARC and brought PostScript to market in 1982 with new Adobe Corp
- included John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Brotz, Ed Taft and Bill Paxton
EFI wins wide format contract
- award from Flora Graphics of Ontario, Canada
- installed new EFI Pro 30h wide format color inkjet system
Dropbox acquires solution contract
- Dropbox Inc., the cloud storage vendor, announced it has acquired FormSwift
- FormSwift is provider of electronic forms solutions
- Purchase price of $95 million
Signs of recession?
- The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that inflation in the U.S. was 7.1% in November, 2022
- Consumer price index of 7.1%
- Eggs up 49% in past year
- Airline fares up 36%
- Milk up 14.7%
- Electricity up 13.7%
- Groceries up 12%
- Chicken up 12%
- Baby food up 10.9%
- Consumer price index of 7.1%
- MSN MarketWatch reports that:
- $6.8 trillion in wealth has been lost by American households in 2022
- 25% of stock market value has been lost this year
- Nominal net worth fell 4.6%
- Market value of assets fell by $6 trillion
- Liabilities rose by $900 billion
- Real household debt up 4.3%
- Personal savings rate has fallen to 3.7% of disposable income
- November retail sales were down 0.6% YoY
- 2.6% decline in auto sales
- 2.6% decline in furniture sales
- 1.5% decline at electronics and appliance stores
- 2.5% decline at home improvement stores
- 2.9% decline at department stores
- The Federal Reserve announced another 0.5 percentage point interest rate increase
- Brings interests rates to 15 year high
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell said “there is still a long way to go in the fight against inflation”
- “I would not see us considering rate cuts until the committee is confident that inflation is moving down to 2% in a sustained way”
- Observers anticipate rates to continue increasing in 2023
- Factory production dropped 0.6% in November
- Fed predicts that the U.S. economy will only grow 0.5% in 2023
- Also projects that unemployment rate will increase in 2023
- LendingClub published data on finances of Americans in 2022
- 63% are living paycheck to paycheck in November, up 60% due to inflation
- 47% of those earning more than $100K/year are living paycheck to paycheck, up 43%
- 401K “hardship” withdrawals hit record high
- Real average hourly earnings are down 1.9%
- Credit card balances up 15%
- Credit card rates are now more than 19% on average, an all-time high
- 32% are saving less than before
- 50% of those “struggling” have no savings at all
- 33% feel uncomfortable about ability to pay an emergency $400 expense
- 8% would not be able to afford it
- 63% are living paycheck to paycheck in November, up 60% due to inflation
- Dr. Mohamen El-Erian, President of Queen’s College, when interviewed on CNN:
- “I think by end of 2023 inflation will be lower…………. around 4%”
- “Parts of manufacturing are already in a recession”
CYBERSECURITY & HEALTHCARE VERTICAL NEWS
Healthcare still #1 target of hackers
- Research published by Data Breach Today again shows that the US healthcare vertical is the number one target of hackers
- Due to high value of stolen patient identities, and ability to extract large ransom payments
- 66% of healthcare systems admit to being hit with ransomware
- Total estimated cost of these attacks exceeds $92 billion in healthcare network downtime
- $44 million in ransom payments have been collected
- 75% or healthcare practices have experienced a cyberattack
- 41% have experienced multiple attacks
- 67% involve stealing PHI (protected health information, aka patient medical records)
- 48% say it impacted patient care
- 53% believe threat level is high or extremely high
- 57% admit they do not change default admin password on connected devices
Epic brings all employees back to office
- For past year, the largest maker of EHRs (electronic health records systems) has required employees to return to work at headquarters in Verona, Wisconsin
- 11,000 people work at the 1,400 acre campus
- Erin McWilliams, Director of Benefits, stated:
- “You cannot replace face-to-face interactions or popping over to someone’s office for a quick gut check with a virtual setting”
- “These are all quick micro-interactions that you may opted not to do when remote.”
- “When joining a meeting, virtually we often found people were distracted, not fully engaged….most of us have seen and experienced this first hand”
- Epic claims its software is used in 2,600 hospitals currently
Epic to partner with Apple
- Agreed to introduce a version of its EHR to run on Apple devices, according to report from Axios.
- Large percentage of physicians use Apple products
- Unknown what launch date is or cost
eClinicalWorks wins EHR contract
- Award from American Endovascular & Amputation Prevention
- Locations in New York, New Jersey and Ohio
Oracle Cerner wins EHR contract
- Award from Crook County Medical Services District of Wyoming
- Will replace CPSI system
Oracle Cerner to move annual user convention
- The event that was formerly known as the Cerner Health Conference will move to Las Vegas next year as part of the Oracle CloudWorld Conference, as Oracle acquired Cerner
- The 15-year-old CHC drew 14,000 attendees to Kansas City, MO each fall, generating $18 million in local economic impact.
Many hospitals are operating in the red
- Research published by Kaufman, Hall & Associates
- More than half of US hospitals are projected to operate at a loss through 2022
- Losses are in the billions of dollars, and rising expenses for supplies and workforce
- “We lean on GPOs to fight the fight because we don’t have time to fight it”; stated Meena Medler, VP of Supply Chain for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
- “I am asking suppliers to lose a little bit, but I can’t demand it”
- “If they pass the price increase down, we still need to use their products”
- “The time for true partnership is now”
HIPAA/cybersecurity breaches in the news
- The feds issued a warning to the healthcare industry regarding the Royal ransomware malware, which is used by several hacking groups.
- Ransom demands range from $250,000 to $2 million
- Joel Zubaid, Julian Rebiga, David Goran and Martin Mizrahi of California/Nevada,were arrested by federal law enforcement officers as grand jury indicted them for allegedly running a business e-mail hacking scam that defrauded $9.2 million from a variety of businesses.
- Kenosha Unified School District of Wisconsin notified an unknown number of students that their info was stolen after a ransomware attack by the Snatch Team.
- Uber Corp. is notifying an unknown number of users that their info may have been exposed after ransomware attack by the UberLeaks hacking group.
- Morgan County School District of Colorado notified an unknown number of students that their info may have been exposed after cyber attack.
- Knox College of Illinois notified an unknown number of students that their info was stolen after ransomware attack by the Hive hacking group.
- New Vision Dental of Pasadena, CA paid $23,000 HIPAA fine for disclosing PHI when responding to Yelp reviews.
- Emory Healthcare of Atlanta, Georgia notified 1,600 patients that their PHI was exposed when it was illegally accessed by a former employee.
- Healthcare Management Solutions LLC notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after data breach.
- Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center of Buffalo, NY announced a former nurse, Kelsey A. Mulvey, was sentenced to 37 months in prison for stealing PHI
- School Town of Munster in Indiana notified an unknown number of students that their info may have been exposed after a student hacked into network.
- Carpenter Shed Rehab of West Monroe, Mississippi notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after a break-in:
- Ouachita Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested a Mississippi man last week after he allegedly broke in and destroyed several items.
- The suspect, Jake Williams, 22, of 2192 Parkplace Cove, Nesbit, Mississippi, was kicked out of the facility for threatening staff, according to the complaint
- The complainant said Williams returned later that day, went inside and broke a TV, computer monitor, printer, table and flipped over several pieces of furniture, which resulted in about
$1,100-worth of damage.
