Alto Imaging Technologies has always been committed to providing systems based on open technology standards. It is our strong belief that this design philosophy enables us to focus on the needs of our customers, based on their application requirements. Changes to these technologies may be made quickly and allow us to customize our applications to meet the requirements of our vendor partners and end-users.

With this in mind, it is important to remember that these open standards technologies are often the target of malicious hackers. One such vulnerability at present is the implementation of Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS). Recently, this application has been the target of malicious attacks, some affecting our end users. To date, we are unaware of any loss or destruction of data; however, several web sites have been defaced. This activity escalated during the highly publicized U.S/China hacker wars.

Securing any application exposed to the public Internet is often a difficult task. However, it is important to ensure that each of us have taken the appropriate steps to alleviate vulnerabilities. In the case of IIS, this involves securing potential risks and applying service packs, hot-fixes, and other application updates as necessary and advised by the software developers. In light of the recent attacks, Microsoft pointed out that the many of the holes in IIS that were exploited recently, had been acknowledged and patched over a year ago; but systems administrators had not responded appropriately.

We suggest that each of you familiarize yourselves with Microsoft’s security policies. To aid you in this endeavor, please take a moment to visit each of the following web pages:

Microsoft TechNet Security:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/default.asp

Subscribe to Microsoft Product Security Bulletins:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/notify.mspx

Microsoft Security Tools and Checklists:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools.asp

Of course, do not hesitate to contact us if you need any assistance or have questions regarding the security of our products.

Thank you,

Alto Imaging Technologies, Inc.