Crackdown On Counterfeit Networking Gear

angry tapir writes "US agencies targeting the sale of counterfeit networking hardware have gotten 30 felony convictions, including a man attempting to sell fake networking equipment to the US Marine Corps, and seized $143 million worth of fake Cisco hardware. The agencies have conducted Operation Network Raider, which has made 700 separate seizures of networking equipment since 2005, the DOJ said. In addition to the convictions and seizures, nine people are facing trial and another eight defendants are awaiting sentencing."

Comments

I can see US Government getting owned on this

[adosch]

The only reason I'm *not* surprised that there was an actual U.S. Goverment/Military faction mentioned ITFA is the government's flame war over fair compete in regards to their many contracts that they bid out and most of the time going to the lowest bidder.

I'm a federal government IT contractor and we're going through the same heartache in the sense that we put requirements together for Enterprise XYZ switch/router/server with good justifications why we want this XYZ brand, but we may never get that item. The government people in charge of procurements will just 'internet-window' purchase something off-brand or knock-off because it was 'like' requirements we asked for, or they will go with some reseller who we've NEVER heard of before, barely has a website and their phone number is disconnected because it was cheaper than the reputable reseller we were going through by 10-fold. I'm just really not all surprised. I'd really be leery of hacked or altered firmware that make some sort of port-knocking backdoor into your network.

happened to us too...

[pointbeing]

I work for an agency under Department of Defense. We just received about $300k worth of fake Cisco stuff. Fortunately the problem was discovered before my podmate certified the vendor's invoice.

Vendor didn't get paid and contracting is still working the issue.