Canon Photo Printer Users to Manually Delete Wi-Fi Settings Before Throwing It Away
 
Canon issued a bulletin on Monday reminding printer owners to manually delete Wi-Fi wireless network settings stored in their printers before selling, discarding or servicing them to prevent sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.

The notice states that the wireless network connection settings in the printer may not be deleted by the normal initialization process. These settings include information such as the wireless network name, password, type, local network IP address, MAC address, and network configuration. If this information is exposed, bad actors could use it to illegally gain access to the network the printer is connected to.

Canon recommends that printer users follow the steps below to manually clear the wireless network settings before handing over the printer to any third party:

For printers with a dedicated reset function, users should:

Reset all settings (Reset Settings -> Reset All)

Enable Wi-Fi

Reset all settings again

For printers without a dedicated reset function, users should:

Reset LAN settings

Enable Wi-Fi

Reset LAN settings again

Canon said that nearly 200 printer models are affected, and the specific list can be viewed here.