FBI Fears Chinese Hackers Have Back Door Into US Government & Military
中国的假冒伪劣产品立功了: FBI调查显示, 来自中国的假冒的CISCO路由器和交换机已进入美国政府, 为黑客攻击留下后门, 对美国的网络安全造成危害.
The very-real concern, being investigated by the FBI, is that either the Chinese government or Chinese hackers (or both) have had the benefit of undetectable back-doors into highly secure government and military computer networks for months, perhaps years. The cause: a high-number of counterfeit Cisco routers and switches installed in nearly all government networks that experienced upgrades and/or new units within the past 18 months.
The US government has been attempting to avoid these issues by only using higher-end Cisco partners/suppliers for the gear. However, the highly-competitive lowest-bid environment of government procurement has inspired several vendors to look for cheap alternatives for hardware... resulting in a catastrophic meltdown of security.
The FBI is concerned about critical infrastructure damage, AND, the potential of access to secure government systems. Many online IT circles have been speculating that the counterfeit hardware will provide backdoor capabilities and access into compromised networks for the originators of the equipment. In fact, some areas of speculation regarding the counterfeit Cisco equipment has focused on the possibility that the hardware is being manufactured expressly to deploy exploitable systems far and wide into the wild. The rationale being that the likely "wholesale" price of the counterfeit routers and switches are so low and profit margins likely very thin, that the only real advantage may be gained from downstream system exploits in the future.
The threat is real. Compromised hardware of potentially hostile foreign origin sits within secure networks of the US government, military, and intelligence services.
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