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."

Comments

Not a big surprise.

[Smenj]

I work for a company that sells used electronics on eBay. We'll occasionally buy cheap gear over eBay too, then resell it at a profit. For many months now we've had a huge problem with counterfeit Cisco cards. It's amazing how detailed the counterfeiters are. My boss wrote up a detailed guide on how to spot fakes. Google "counterfeit cisco wic".

Re:And outsourcing....

[moderatorrater]

While essential, it's not the only step. Automatic tests of the router hardware, random checking, and employee control are all necessary steps if we really want our government networks to be secure.

Selling out the back door

[sjbe]

the counterfeit routers are made in the same factories by the same people who make the real routers; they just keep the assembly line running past the hours that Cisco is paying them for. That happens ALL the time. I've visited manufacturing plants in China and I've seen it happen with my own eyes. Selling out the back door is not surprising at all. In fact this is why I'm less worried than I might otherwise be about the gear having back doors or being otherwise compromised. Simplest explanation is just theft in one form or another.

does the LEGIT Cisco equipment contain back doors? Very good question. Got to be worrisome to the US military and security agencies. Much/most off the shelf hardware is made outside the US where it wouldn't me much of a stretch to imagine backdoors have been added by foreign governments. Same worries that other governments have about US made/designed software and hardware. And of course if you really want to get tin-foil-hat about it one has to wonder if our own government has had back doors installed. Very unlikely to be sure, but clearly possible.

That said, it's pretty low on the list of likely threats. Pretty hard to know exactly what gear will be placed where and what it will give you access to. Plus even with a back door, places with sensitive data are more likely to be monitoring the traffic which is harder to hide.

Technical details of malicious hardware

[Sam King]

For those of you who are interested, you can find more technical details of how we designed and implemented malicious hardware from here

-- computer scientists from University of Illinois

Re:And outsourcing....

[Detritus]

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/xerox.htm

Re:"Counterfeit" not an issue...

[Frosty Piss]

From what I understand, the counterfeit routers are made in the same factories by the same people who make the real routers; they just keep the assembly line running past the hours that Cisco is paying them for.

I keep hearing this. But look at the images of the hardware side by side ... Is it the same? No it's not. Clearly these two boards are not from the same manufacturing line.