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Cisco Confirms Arrest In Theft Of Its Code

Posted by Zonk on from the crackdown-on-black-hats dept.

spafbnerf writes "Informationweek is reporting on Cisco Systems' confirmation of an arrest in connection with the theft of its IOS 12.3 source code last year. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that federal officials and security experts have acknowledged that the theft of the Cisco source code was part of a wider pattern of thousands of attacks on military and research computers perpetrated by an unknown number of individuals." From the article: "The FBI fully recognizes the inherent sophistication and global nature of intrusion investigations...As such, we have worked hard to develop strong partnerships within the international law-enforcement community. In this case, we have been working closely with our international partners to include Sweden, Great Britain, and others. As a result of recent actions, the criminal activity appears to have stopped."

5 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. do they believe it themselves? by nietsch · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As a result of recent actions, the criminal activity appears to have stopped.


    I read that as: "As a result, the criminals have realised they were being watched and have cleaned up their act, and have made sure they are not noticed by 'them' anymore.

    Now on to the FA.
    --
    This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
  2. Over-confident by dbleoslow · · Score: 5, Funny

    "As a result of recent actions, the criminal activity appears to have stopped."

    Thanks to the bear patrol recently put in place in my neighborhood, all bear-related activity appears to have stopped.

    1. Re:Over-confident by NekkidBob · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wish to buy your tiger repelling rock...

  3. Firewall? by nogginthenog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Looks like they could do with a decent firewall to keep out intruders. Can anyone recommend a good one?

  4. Don't they WANT it secure? by mreed911 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From TFA: "The stolen code was a portion of Cisco's Internetworking Operating System version 12.3. The incident has been a matter of concern because malicious hackers might find flaws in the code that could be exploited to impair the functioning of Cisco's routers."

    Translation: We don't have time to QA this code, so we'd rather not have anyone do it themselves, either, then hack us with the holes we neglected to look for in the first place.

    Ugh. Sometimes I wonder if there ought to be an open-source REQUIREMENT in RFP's to vendors. Hell, code availability has HELPED Linksys (who's also Cisco!) - folks have "hacked" it to make it MORE robust, but you don't see any greater number of "hacks" for Linksys products than you do for anyone else...

    Maybe Cisco ought to focus on the security BASICS (it's still easiest to get into some else's network because they never changed the default password than it is to script-kid some mutated hack into working) rather than worrying that "outsiders" might actually harden their products FOR them...