FBI Says Military Had Counterfeit Cisco Routers

There are new developments in the case of the counterfeit Cisco routers, which we have been discussing for some time. The NYTimes updates the story after an FBI PowerPoint presentation made its way onto the Web. It seems that experts at Cisco have examined some of the counterfeit routers in detail and proclaimed that they contain no back doors. Others don't believe we can be so sure. "Last month, [DARPA] began distributing chips with hidden Trojan horse circuitry to military contractors who are participating in the agency's Trusted Integrated Circuits program. The goal is to test forensic techniques for finding hidden electronic trap doors, which can be maddeningly elusive... The threat was demonstrated in April when a team of computer scientists from the University of Illinois presented a paper at a technical conference in San Francisco detailing how they had modified a Sun Microsystems SPARC microprocessor... The researchers were able to create a stealth system that would allow them to automatically log in to a computer and steal passwords."

/Light Bulb Flashes Overhead

[gregarican]

So that's why my crappy Linksys wifi access points have to be rebooted every week or so. Damn commies!!!

it is important to carefully inspected new gear.

[atarione]

if your new rack mount routers and switches say "crisco" on the front you may have a problem.

re: contain no back doors

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they don't contain any backdoors, they're counterfeit Cisco routers

Re:And outsourcing....

[flyingsquid]

I've heard that the problem is a lot more severe than they're actually letting on. Apparently, one of the biggest problems that they're facing is counterfeit Microsoft products. Fortunately, they're pretty easy to recognize, you just have to educate your employees about how everything is supposed to be functioning, and then be vigilant in looking for anything that appears out of the ordinary, any erratic or unusual behavior whatsoever. So if you notice that your computer is running unusually fast, that you're getting a lot of work done, or that the interface is intuitive and easy to use, then you can be sure that you've been sold a counterfeit Microsoft product.