Print remains biggest Zero Trust blind spot, survey finds

Vasion has published research showing print infrastructure is the least covered area in enterprise Zero Trust strategies, with only 16% coverage among the categories measured.

The findings are based on an independent survey of more than 500 enterprise CIOs and senior IT leaders in the United States across government, manufacturing and healthcare organisations. Respondents said Zero Trust adoption was markedly higher in other parts of IT security, including cloud workloads at 66%, endpoint security at 61% and identity management at 58%.

The data points to a persistent weakness in document and print workflows, even as many large organisations expand digital transformation programmes. More than half of respondents, 54%, described their print environment as "actively managed, with known and accepted risks."

Operational disruption also featured heavily in the results. Some 61% of CIOs and IT leaders said print or document workflow failures disrupt their business at least once a week, while 92% said their organisations experience such failures.

Security gap

The survey linked the print issue to broader concerns about IT modernisation. Security concerns were identified as the biggest obstacle to digital transformation by 51% of respondents, suggesting legacy print environments are part of a wider risk problem rather than an isolated technical issue.

At the same time, investment priorities appear to be shifting towards artificial intelligence. A total of 64% said establishing or expanding AI ranks as a leading focus in 2026.

That creates potential tension for IT leaders seeking to automate workflows while parts of the supporting infrastructure remain outside current security frameworks. A product that removes legacy print infrastructure, applies Zero Trust policies and can be deployed quickly would rank as a high or top modernisation priority for 80% of respondents.

There were also signs that buyers are willing to adopt newer systems. According to the results, 43% of respondents identified themselves as fast followers, while 24% said they were innovation leaders.

AI pressure

Vasion linked the findings to the growing use of AI in document-heavy workflows, where printing and scanning still sit within many core business processes. The company argues this part of enterprise infrastructure remains overlooked even as organisations pursue greater automation.

"CIOs want AI agents doing real work inside their document workflows," said Corey Ercanbrack, Chief Technology Officer at Vasion.

"Those workflows still run through print and scan, and in most organisations that layer sits outside Zero Trust with no identity binding and no audit trail. You can't give an agent access to a layer you can't verify. Closing the print gap isn't just security cleanup. It's the prerequisite for end-to-end agentic AI," Ercanbrack said.

The survey covered 502 respondents, including CIOs, IT directors and systems administrators. CIOs accounted for half of the sample, with IT directors making up 41% and systems administrators 9%.

Sector coverage was limited to government, manufacturing and healthcare, all industries where document handling and compliance requirements tend to be significant. That may help explain why print and document workflows remain a material part of day-to-day operations despite broader moves towards digitisation.

For Vasion, which sells print management and document workflow software, the figures signal that enterprises still have unresolved issues in a part of the technology stack often treated as routine infrastructure. For buyers, the research suggests print remains both a security blind spot and a source of regular operational disruption.

The contrast with better-secured areas such as cloud and identity systems is likely to draw attention from IT departments that have spent years implementing Zero Trust policies elsewhere. With only 16% of respondents saying print infrastructure is covered by Zero Trust measures, the survey indicates that one of the oldest layers of enterprise IT remains among the least modernised.