Cisco (CSCO) Responds to NSA Spying Allegations

Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) says it is looking into claims that its equipment was used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) Tailored Access Operations (TAO) organization to spy on numerous IT companies. The issue was raised in Germany's Der Spiegel on Sunday.

Cisco's John Stewart issued a blog post Sunday voicing concerns over issues raised in the article. He wrote the following on the official Cisco blog:

An article was published in Der Spiegel today about the alleged capabilities of the United States National Security Agency (NSA) Tailored Access Operations (TAO) organization. The article says that TAO “exploits the technical weaknesses” of Information Technology products from numerous companies, and mentions Cisco.

We are deeply concerned with anything that may impact the integrity of our products or our customers’ networks and continue to seek additional information.

We are committed to avoiding security issues in our products, and handling issues professionally when they arise. Our Trustworthy Systems initiatives, Cisco Secure Development Lifecycle, Cisco Common Crypto models, and Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) and Vulnerability Disclosure policies are all industry-leading examples of our commitment to our customers. This is central to how we earn and maintain trust.

At this time, we do not know of any new product vulnerabilities, and will continue to pursue all avenues to determine if we need to address any new issues. If we learn of a security weakness in any of our products, we will immediately address it.

As we have stated prior, and communicated to Der Spiegel, we do not work with any government to weaken our products for exploitation, nor to implement any so-called security ‘back doors’ in our products.

Stewart also posted the following update today:

On Monday, December 30th, Der Spiegel magazine published additional information about the techniques allegedly used by NSA TAO to infiltrate the technologies of numerous IT companies. As a result of this new information coming to light, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has opened an investigation. Customers can stay informed of the progress of this investigation via the previously posted Cisco Security Response.

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