Ciscogate Lynn Story in WSJ Misses Point
I'm a big fan of The Wall Street Journal (even though they annoy me by trying to charge for anything and everything on the web), but their Aug 1st story on page B1, "Cisco and Security Officials Move to Avert Router Attacks" simply misses the point and gets a few things wrong as well!
The main point is that Cisco SHOULD be seen as heroes, but someone at Cisco blew it with their jihad against security-dude Michael Lynn and they are considered as villains by most in the security field today. A massive PR disaster which unfortunately may hurt their bottom line, and has rallied hackers worldwide to focus on hacking their products. No one blames Cisco for being annoyed or mad, but for their heavy handed and widely considered "unethical" actions.
The WSJ states that Michael Lynn is a "renegade computer-security researcher." This is not a commonly held opinion in the security and IT world. Maybe he shouldn't have done it - up for debate - but NOT a renegade!
They also state that "Security experts had though routers . . . were immune" - WRONG! Security experts know NOTHING is immune! Perhaps the IT community in general, or senior citizens in assisted living, or teenagers heavily into body-piercing, but NOT security experts.
I'm on vacation so not reading much Mainstream press - did they all blow the story??
The main point is that Cisco SHOULD be seen as heroes, but someone at Cisco blew it with their jihad against security-dude Michael Lynn and they are considered as villains by most in the security field today. A massive PR disaster which unfortunately may hurt their bottom line, and has rallied hackers worldwide to focus on hacking their products. No one blames Cisco for being annoyed or mad, but for their heavy handed and widely considered "unethical" actions.
The WSJ states that Michael Lynn is a "renegade computer-security researcher." This is not a commonly held opinion in the security and IT world. Maybe he shouldn't have done it - up for debate - but NOT a renegade!
They also state that "Security experts had though routers . . . were immune" - WRONG! Security experts know NOTHING is immune! Perhaps the IT community in general, or senior citizens in assisted living, or teenagers heavily into body-piercing, but NOT security experts.
I'm on vacation so not reading much Mainstream press - did they all blow the story??
posted by Ted Demopoulos at 12:08 AM
Comments on "Ciscogate Lynn Story in WSJ Misses Point"
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AckerX said ... (Tuesday, August 02, 2005 6:50:00 AM) :
post a commentThe number of "Fuck Cisco" T-shirts at DEFCON was truly amazing.
Everyone agreed they would NEVER cooperate with Cisco - telling them about their vulnerabilities was a bad practice and dangerous.