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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."
If people want to clone Cisco gear that's fine, just as long as they don't try to sell it to me as if it were the real thing
I suppose this is a good thing. Honestly though, I'm not entirely sure why this is considered news - the government has long been opposed to knock-offs of most things. It's a nice buff to the security community, but is so hard to detect that the over all effect is likely to negligible.
I'll take a stand and say, "meh."
Is the fact that they were trying to sell the knock-offs to the DOD for use with Marine Corp forces. My cousin is out there right now, and to know that operation critical hardware could fail because it's a knock-off and poorly manufactured - is the worst crime. These are our troops, brothers, sisters, friends, and family members. I would hate to think my cousin died because somewhere in someplace a network card failed to relay operational data.
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
From my understanding, Cisco uses Finisar GBICs but burns a custom serial number that IOS looks for before bringing up the port. I've made the mistake of putting a Finisar SFP in a Cisco switch and not realizing it until the port doesn't come up.
Of course, you can put a Cisco SFP in just about anything and it will work.
Not saying it makes what this guy did right, but still, if you're that sort of person who'd try to counterfeit, it would be pretty tempting.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
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.
So what ... like 2-3 Core Switches?
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
the stuff is basically finisar GBICs which cisco uses. these are modded with a flash to change the serial number so IOS can recognize them as genuine and a sticker saying cisco slapped on them. the performance is identical to cisco at a tenth of the price.
Question -- are the original back doors real or fake on the original routers, and on the fake routers ?
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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.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
...attempting to sell fake networking equipment to the US Marine Corps...
After all the polemic about cyber-attacks from Russia & China, this could be more sneaky. Mass-produce some Cisco knock-offs, with a backdoor, and sell 'em cheap...I can see it now:
NetAdmin1: "So, no worried about $latest_attack, then?
NetAdmin2: "Nah, just installed the latest Cisco gear. Got a good price too!!!
It is possible to get non-Cisco GBICs working on a Cisco switch. It's just difficult to find the correct command to do so.
The command you want is "service unsupported-transceiver".
I've seen the counterfeit hardware first hand. Modules for 2600 and 3600 series routers, mostly. That was a few years ago. It was cheap, and nobody at the *cisco partnered CCIE training company* which I will not mention cared. They worked, thats all that mattered.
Its like spam. If people continue to buy from spam adverts, we'll continue to see more spam. If people quit buying, the spammers will eventually move to something else.
They keep selling because it keeps on working.
Nobodies Prefect
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I have really mixed feelings about this. Much of this hardware is not truly counterfeit. It's actually unofficial production from the same components in the same factories as the legit gear. The only way anyone (including Cisco) can tell it from the real thing is the serial numbers.
On one hand, this is fraud an I'm all for stopping fraud. On the other, it only happens because Cisco chose to go with the dirt-cheapest labor out there knowing very well this was a likely result. The use of law enforcement resources is just externalizing the cost. Meanwhile, part of the reason U.S. domestic labor is more costly in the first place is because it exists under a regulatory framework that mostly prevents exactly this sort of fraud.
So they offshore the production and then to add insult to injury, underemployed Americans get to foot the bill for fixing the INEVITABLE fraud, and so are forced to help make the offshoring possible and profitable for Cisco. It's almost like having your employer charge you a fee to process the paperwork for your involuntary layoff.
Perhaps Cisco should bring it back onshore so this sort of fraud doesn't happen in the first place. If the DoD is really concerned about the security of the networking gear (and they really SHOULD be), they should INSIST that Cisco at least make their gear domestically.
the stuff is basically finisar GBICs which cisco uses.
"Basically" covers a lot of ground. Suppose Cisco wants to guarantee 99.995 uptime/reliability. If the underlying equipment is insufficiently precise, Cisco's support engineers have to be sent out more often, which costs more than engineering that extra bit of reliability in hardware. Perhaps Cisco buys Finisar parts in bulk and bins those that don't pass some internal Cisco benchmark/quality inspection.
But that "generic" Finisar GBIC could well be a counterfeit.
Jerry Rawls, President and CEO of Finisar, remarked on the problems Finisar is having with fake GBIC fiber optic transceivers they have discovered at their customers’ premises. Photos were shown of two GBIC transceivers that looked identical from the outside, but only one was manufactured by Finisar. It would seem that the Rolex and Gucci phenomenon of low cost replicas has now reached the photonics community. The concern is that this may be the tip of the iceberg and many companies in the photonics business may be suffering revenue loss from exact ‘fakes.’
source
What I don't get is why Cisco doesn't task some employees to keep watch 24/7 over those factories where they make this stuff. Make it a condition of the contract that they get full time, go anyplace whenever they want, access. Then they can at least eliminate the same factories making knock offs at night. I guess they save one night shift payroll expense per factory and pass it on to the US tax payer so they can have dozens of federal employees try to stop it, after the fact.
In short, Cisco is sure a buncha hypocritical cheap guys, considering what those things cost, and the US government/tax payer is once again the sucker, with the now common "privatize the profits of Big Inc, but socialize the risks from wallets of the tax payers".
I think the government should just contract directly with the manufacturers and cut Cisco out of the loop. Why not? If it is coming from China anyway, I mean, that's the deal, so who cares then? They are playing make believe it isn't Chinese made because it has a Cisco label on it? These are actual bona fide adults making serious coin, and they play make believe? They could get switches cheaper, contract for support directly from those Chinese manufacturers, and have their own fed employees in there following the runs and inspecting/doing Q and A, and pulling components randomly and bringing them back to look for hidden non contracted for back doors. And it would be tons cheaper, for the same exact gear.
If some corporation wants to get rich by outsourcing, heck with it, buy directly from the outsourced builders instead. Fish or cut bait, we are trading with China or not, y/n? If yes, deal directly with the Chinese for the gear, unless there is an all made in USA quality product as an alternative. The government exists to protect US jobs..or not. They are "worried about security", or not. They can hire cisco cheaper just for new designs, tell them they can get it made themselves, cut them down to their real practical outsourced size. there's no real reason to pay for both the "IP" and then hardware profits, when as has been reported, these units are actually way cheaper when they are non Cisco branded.
Mostly, it looks like "not", and more worried about bloated payrolls for security theater government McJobs and protecting the income of the top 1% of the population, who are globalists anyway and not even close to being loyal or patriotic or anything like that.
All these outsourcers are economic mercenaries, and as such, I dismiss any claims they make of being patriots, etc. they want all the advantages of being in the US, get to live where generations built up the infrastrucutre and the quality of life, but are too cheap and weasly to want to chip in and pay for any of that. then when their precious gets cloned, they want the taxpayers to do their jobs for them, for *free*.
Ta heck with that! They should "police" their IP entirely on their own nickle, same as BP and assorted should pay every penny of the cleanup and losses from this latest oil spill.