Technical information

Network Security White Paper ver. G.1.2
Page 9 of 72
1. Introduction
This document describes potential network threats and recommended precautions for them.
The products have built-in network services for providing a variety of features for wired and wireless
network clients, such as network scanning, printing or faxing, and also client services for accessing
network servers running outside the products, such as an LDAP server, Netware server, or Mail server.
This document focuses on how-to protect against potential threats from external attacks.
As the products are designed for use inside an Intranet where network clients and servers are protected
by firewalls, the products rely on the Intranet’s security policy, like the security provided by other network
servers and clients. However, some customers require more strict security levels for network devices,
because potential threats from inside the firewalls are increasing, and some configurations even use a
secure connection to the Internet as a part of the Intranet.
To satisfy these demands, the products are all evaluated by security scanning applications during
development, and also are checked for known vulnerability issues reported by Internet security
organizations, such as CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC : HTTP://
www.cert.org/ ). Whenever we
find security vulnerabilities in the products, we provide appropriate countermeasures.
1-1 Port Based Network Services and Potential Security Issues
Some MFP/LP services allow write access from network clients. Because of this, some customers may
feel that the products are not secure. In fact, the products are secure and provide security measures
against potential threats to specific services, but some of these measures can make the services
unavailable. For example, disabling the LPD port will make the products unavailable to LPR clients.
Disabling all protocols that are not used is highly recommended. This can be done quickly using Network
Security Levels (described in the Appendix section entitled “Network Security Level Settings”). The
Network Security Level function can be used to expedite security configuration. Please refer to the
Appendix section entitled “Description of the Levels” for information about the configuration and a
description of each level.