Windows network shares are also referred to as Samba or SMB shares. When you configure a printer on an SMB share, you must enter a username and password for the print queue.
The username and password are stored as unencrypted text in the /etc/opt/gnome/cups/printers.conf file. This file has read-only permissions for users with root privileges, so any user with root privileges can read the username and password for the print queue.
To reduce the impact of possible security violations, make sure that the username and password required to access the print queue is used only for the print queue. This ensures that any possible security violation is restricted to unauthorized use of the print queue.