More on counterfeit Cisco gear: FBI thinks it's a national security risk

The FBI is freaking out over the fact that the U.S. Department of Defense has been sold counterfeit Cisco gear. The concern isn't so much over whether Cisco is getting the revenue it deserves - it's more about the possibility that hackers could be embedding backdoors into the counterfeit gear to allow them access into U.S. military networks at a later date. In a leaked PowerPoint presentation, the FBI indicates that it has discovered counterfeit Cisco 1000 and 2000 Series routers, Catalyst 4000 Series switches, Gigabit Interface Converters and WAN interface cards that have been sold to the DoD.

The counterfeit products are marred by "dirty welding" (gasp!), but the FBI maintains the parts also have a higher failure rate - and duplicate MAC addresses in counterfeit gear can cause networks to shut down.

The government already uses Cisco Gold and Silver Partners for procurement, but the FBI says some of those partners are selling counterfeit gear to the government.

Can the government control the supply chain? Critics say no. What do you think?

• Cisco
• counterfeit
• routers