The certification involves rigorous testing and evaluation by the Common Criteria Testing Laboratory, which is overseen by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), a U.S. government initiative.  NIAP certification was obtained for the following Lexmark devices: the X642e, X644e, X646e, X646dte, X646ef, X850e, X852e and X854e monochrome laser MFPs and the X940e and X945e color laser MFPs. The NIAP also certified six specific security functions on each Lexmark MFP including: user authentication, fax communications control, device configuration protection, hard disk encryption, hard disk sanitization and TSF (Target of evaluation Security Features) self protection, which means that users cannot bypass the device’s security features.

Customers in industries such as government, health care and financial services use Common Criteria certification as third-party validation of the security functionality of information technology products, and some customers, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, have adopted the certification as a requirement.

« Common Criteria certification for our workgroup MFPs validates that Lexmark can meet, and exceed, the demands of customers who operate in the most secure environments, » said Marty Canning, Lexmark vice president and president of its Printing Solutions and Services Division.

In addition to extensive security features, Lexmark’s workgroup MFPs feature an intuitive touchscreen eTask interface that can be customized to simplify complicated processes to the touch of an icon. For example, Lexmark MFPs can be programmed to move documents through the federal case management review process electronically, reducing the time agency workers spend routing documents for each case from an average of three days to less than one hour. All of Lexmark’s workgroup MFPs also include print, copy, scan and fax capabilities to help further improve productivity and reduce costs.