How to password protect printing on a HP Officejet?

Question

We discovered that our HP Officejet 6700 was directly accessible from the internet after someone printed a pamphlet about 'Serpent People in New York' (quite hilarious actually).

Ofcourse, we'd like to prevent this from happening again. However, I quite like the 'printing from the internet'-feature (so that I can print stuff when away from home).

Is it possible to somehow add some protection to printing? E.g. a password that each computer should have, a SSL-certificate I have to install, ... ?

I have a few Windows machines and one linux machine that will print regularly to this machine from the local network, and one linux machine that will most often print via the internet.

Answer 1

Set up a VPN and make the printer visible only inside it.

This way, every device connected to the VPN will be able to see and use the printer. Outside the VPN, the printer or any other network resources won't be accessible.

I'm always recommending to never expose these network devices publicly. Exposure might look handy at the beginning but this does not go together with privacy expectation you expressed in your comment above.

I know this is not a direct answer, but it actually "password-protects" your network including your printer.

Answer 2

Your HP ePrint account can be set to accept print documents only from some specified email accounts. Currently it may be set to accept from everyone.

This is a weak security measure, but may be enough to prevent 'Serpent People in New York' from printing again.

References :

• HP Connected
• HP Printers - Turning On Web Services
• Introduction to HP Web Services (video)