Cisco Security

Cisco's secure development is still in the awkward teenage stage

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:02:36 -0400

Cisco's chief security officer admits the company is in the "awkward teenage phase" when it comes to secure development lifecycles. In a wide-ranging interview with IDG News Service, John Stewart says Cisco hasn't adopted a secure development process like Microsoft, and that testing is done at the end of the development process. "We're figuring out from that data how do you go backwards into the definition process," he says.

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Cisco security under attack at Black Hat/DefCon

Cisco Subnet — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:27:31 -0400

Security in Cisco gear will be under scrunity next week as security researchers put Cisco security through its paces at Black Hat/DefCon. WLAN IPS vendor AirTight Networks will show how it's possible with some implementations of 802.11w in vendor equipment to conjure up an attack that hits WLAN access points with malformed packets, not bringing them down but triggering a disconnection response in their WLAN clients, writes Ellen Messmer in Network World.

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Cisco PIX last day today

Cisco Subnet — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:04:58 -0400

Today is the last day you can purchase a PIX firewall appliance from Cisco, ending one of the longest and most successful lives of a gateway security product ever, writes Richard Stiennon in his Stiennon on Security blog. Cisco is discontinuing the line in favor of its ASA 5500 appliances, which were launched in 2006. The ASA 5500s support firewall and VPN just like the PIX but with better performance, SSL VPN support, VoIP security, reports Network World's Tim Greene. Support for PIX will cease July 27, 2013.

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Cisco updates available

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:47:05 -0400

See Cisco Security Advisory: Cisco Unified Communications Manager Denial of Service and Authentication Bypass Vulnerabilities Go to Cisco Subnet for more Cisco news, blogs, discussion forums, security alerts, book giveaways, and more.

Cisco Security: patches now available for Cisco VoIP holes

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:40:58 -0400

As expected, Cisco Security on Wednesday announced software updates to fix two holes in its VoIP prodcuts. The Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), formerly Cisco CallManager, contains a vulnerability in the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Manager service that may allow a denial-of-service attack. Also, Cisco's Real-Time Information Server (RIS) Data Collector contains an authentication bypass hole that may expose information that is useful for hackers to mount other attacks.

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Cisco VoIP vulnerabilities revealed today

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:05:01 -0400

Cisco’s VoIP customers need to pay attention to its expected announcement today that its call server software has vulnerabilities. The VoIP security company VoIPshield says Cisco gear and that of its two chief rivals, Avaya and Nortel, have vulnerabilities that leave their systems open to a range of attacks. Cisco has been told about the vulnerabilities and may have fixes for them today, but that is not clear. VoIPshield says one of the three companies will just issue an advisory about its flaws but not fixes.

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Cisco IPS vulnerability patched today

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:17:12 -0400

Cisco Security released a patch today that fixes a vulnerability in its Intrusion Prevention System. Cisco says that its IPSs "that have gigabit network interfaces installed and are deployed in inline mode contain a denial of service vulnerability in the handling of jumbo Ethernet frames.

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Cisco wants your feedback on what new security features you need

jheary — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:16:56 -0400

I am a member of a field advisor board for security products at Cisco. One of the charters of this role is to provide the various security business units(BUs) with customer feedback on the feature and product requests they most desire. This process, among several others, helps ensure that the security product BUs at Cisco are developing features that customers are asking for. This input is used by the BU’s to help prioritize which features will be developed first. Otherwise known as the product feature roadmap.

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Cisco Security warns of multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco PIX and Cisco ASA

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:28:39 -0400

So much for Cisco's once-announced plans to only release software patches twice a year. New patches seem to be coming out monthly. Today Cisco released updates to fix multiple holes in Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances and Cisco PIX Security Appliances. Applause goes out to Cisco for putting safety ahead of scheduling.

Today's security advisory addresses the following vulnerabilities, Cisco says:

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Cisco issues three patches to fix DoS bugs in IOS and Service Control Engine

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:45:41 -0400

Cisco has issued three security patches, fixing bugs that could crash its products and drawing a warning from the SANS Internet Storm Center. The updates, issued Wednesday, fix denial of service bugs in the SSH (Secure Shell) software in Cisco's Internetwork Operating System (IOS), used to power its routers, and in the Cisco Service Control Engine, which is provides carrier-grade networking services.

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Audit and lockdown your Cisco routers quickly using Router and Security Device Manager

jheary — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:53:41 -0400

90+% of Cisco Router administrators are CLI jockeys, myself included. However, there are several GUI tools that can help you manage and secure your Cisco routers very quickly. The one I want to focus on today is Cisco’s free Security Device Manager (SDM). Like most of Cisco’s device managers it allows you to manage one router at a time. Given some of the recent security news regarding Cisco routers I thought this topic might be timely in helping you lock down your Cisco routers. To quote from the Cisco SDM site, “Cisco Router and Security Device Manager (SDM) is an intuitive, Web-based device management tool supported on Cisco 830 series through Cisco 7301 routers.

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First rootkit for IOS created

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:00:47 -0400

If you build it, they will come. So hold onto your hats now that the world has its first ever Cisco router rootkit, reports a story from IDG News Service. Sebastian Muniz, a researcher with Core Security Technologies, developed the rootkit for Cisco's Internetwork Operating System and will show it off on May 22 at the EuSecWest conference in London. Rootkits are stealth programs, extremely hard to detect. For the most part, they are aimed at Windows.

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Solution?

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:38:46 -0400

What hasn't been hacked, altered, and yet we still continue to attempt to fix it with broken encryption models that don't work. When will people start thinking like the hackers? I know of 1 solution http://www.dreamstream.info

Cisco updates Self-Defending Network family, adds content filtering to services routers

Cisco Subnet — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:33:27 -0400

Cisco updated its so-called Self-Defending Network portfolio, which includes the addition of content filtering software from Trend Micro to Cisco's Integrated Services Routers, and enhancements to Cisco's endpoint defense, firewalls, intrusion prevention, and router security capabilities.

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Hackers hijacking routers and blackmailing firms to regain access

Cisco Subnet — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:57:31 -0400

A Cisco engineer is warning of scams by hackers who hijack routers and blackmail companies to regain access. Recounting incidents he heard at Black Hat 2008 in Washington D.C. last month, Brian Wilson, a.k.a Slimjim100 blogger, wrote: "I have heard of reports where this is happened to a large multi-site company and they where blackmailed for money to get access back to there routers ...

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Now Juniper's planning a Cisco MARS attack

Cisco Subnet — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:43:30 -0500

Some Juniper news that escaped the attention of most of the media late last month was its OEM announcement with IT management company Q1 Labs, which was one of Network World's 10 management companies to watch. Juniper plans to rebadge Q1's management software, which Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Jon Oltsik, writing in his blog on CNet.com, says is an alternative to Cisco MARS.

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Bye-bye Cisco PIX firewall

Cisco Subnet — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:11:19 -0500

Cisco is discontinuing its PIX firewall line in favor of its ASA 5500 appliances, which were launched in 2006. The ASA 5500s support firewall and VPN just like the PIX but with better performance, SSL VPN support, VoIP security, reports Network World's Tim Greene. They also have modules for antivirus, antispam, antiphishing and URL filtering. You won't be able to pick up a PIX after July 28, its last day on the market. Support for them will cease July 27, 2013. Quick to react is Astaro, which is offering 20% off the list price of its hardware under a trade-in program.

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The top 5 coolest security features/products released this year by Cisco

jheary — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:13:50 -0500

WoW 2007 is almost over! It seems like it has flown by. Cisco security has made some great strides over the year. Let’s take a look back at some of the most interesting, useful, and/or innovative security related features & products that Cisco released in 2007. I’d also like to hear from you what ones you’ve been most impressed with this year.

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Winners of 'Security Monitoring with Cisco Security MARS' book

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:47:25 -0400

We have winners! Here are the winners of October's Cisco Press book giveaway. The following readers will each get a copy of Security Monitoring with Cisco Security MARS, published by Cisco Press.

Before we name the winners, here's the answer to the easy trivia question to win the prize:

Q: Cisco in September added a branch router to its line of integrated services routers. What is the full name of this line of routers (full name required, not just the acronyms)?

A: Integrated Services Router (ISR) (see this story).

Here are the winners:

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