What is HP Dynamic Security?
Dynamic Security is HP’s name for cartridge authentication in its printers. The printer checks for an authorized HP chip and, on affected models, refuses cartridges without one. HP describes it as protecting its intellectual property and guarding customers against counterfeits. Firmware updates have disabled previously-working third-party cartridges.
Everything on this page is sourced, and everything is dated 27 September 2026, because this is a statement about a company’s current behavior and those change. Where we could not confirm something, the page says so.
What HP says it is for
HP’s own framing, as reported by PCWorld, is that Dynamic Security exists to “protect HP’s innovations and intellectual property, maintain the integrity of our printing systems” and to protect customers from counterfeit cartridges.
Two things about that are worth taking seriously rather than dismissing. Counterfeit printer supplies genuinely exist and genuinely cause problems, and an authentication check genuinely detects them. It also, by the same mechanism, excludes legitimate compatible cartridges made by companies that are not counterfeiting anything. Both consequences follow from one design decision, and an honest account of it has to include both.
What happens when the check fails
On affected printers, a cartridge without an authorized HP chip is rejected and the printer will not print with it. PCWorld also notes HP’s position that where a cartridge still fails after the feature has been removed, “the cartridge is most likely defective”.
The behavior that has generated the most complaint is not the initial refusal but the retrospective one: a cartridge working normally, then a firmware update, then the same cartridge refused. That is the mechanism that makes this a consumer issue rather than a purchasing footnote.
Which printers, specifically
This is where general advice fails and a specific list is required. PCWorld published a list of models on which Dynamic Security can be disabled via a firmware upgrade, and a second list on which it depends on the printer’s manufacture date.
| Group | Models |
|---|---|
| Can be disabled by firmware upgrade | OfficeJet 6810, 6820; OfficeJet Pro 6230, 6830, 8610, 8620, 8630, 8640, 8660; X451dn/dw, X476dn/dw, X551dw, X576dw |
| Conditional, depending on manufacture date before 1 December 2016 | OfficeJet Pro 6970, 7740, 8210, 8700; OfficeJet 6950; PageWide 300, 400, 500 |
Lists as published by PCWorld, read 27 September 2026. These are older models. We have NOT verified the current behavior of HP’s present-day printer range, and we do not publish a claim about models we have not sourced.
HP Smart Tank is a different product
Worth separating, because the brand association causes confusion. HP’s Smart Tank range is bottle-fed: ink is poured from a bottle into a built-in reservoir. There is no cartridge, therefore no chip, therefore no authentication step. Dynamic Security is a cartridge mechanism and does not apply to it.
We cover Smart Tank in the ink tank hub but do not publish a cost per page for it, because we could not read a confirmed bottle price from HP on the date we checked.
Dynamic Security is not Instant Ink
Another thing that gets conflated. Instant Ink is HP’s subscription service, which charges monthly for a page allowance. Dynamic Security is cartridge authentication, present on printers with no subscription attached at all.
They are independent: you can be on Instant Ink and unaffected by authentication, or off any plan and still have a cartridge refused. If the subscription is your actual concern, see how to cancel HP Instant Ink and whether HP printers require a subscription.
What to do about it
- If you already own an affected printer: check the PCWorld list above for your model, and check HP’s own software and drivers page for your printer, which is where the firmware in question is distributed.
- Turn off automatic firmware updates. The single most effective precaution on any cartridge printer, because behavior changes have arrived with updates.
- If you are buying: buy bottle-fed. No chip, no authentication, nothing an update can withdraw. The ink tank options.
Keeping it in proportion
HP is not uniquely villainous here and we are not going to write it that way. Cartridge authentication exists across the industry in various forms, and the reason HP appears most often in coverage of it is that HP named its implementation, shipped it widely, and applied it retrospectively via firmware — which made it visible and documentable in a way that unnamed equivalents are not.
The buying conclusion is the same as everywhere else in this section: if supply freedom is the goal, buy a printer whose supply has no chip in it. That conclusion does not depend on how any of these disputes resolve.