Cisco Systems, Inc. and Juniper are two providers of router equipment, and in recent times both have issued advisories regarding vulnerable routing software. For example, on January 27, 2005, Juniper told all M- and T-series router clients using software made before January 7, 2005, to either upgrade the software or risk becoming victimized by a serious security vulnerability that was exploitable either by a device directly attached to the router or by a remote attack. Cited as a “high” risk level, the vulnerability was transmitted to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team by Qwest. Previously, Juniper had marketed its software as being more stable and more reliable than Cisco’s IOS.

On February 16, 2005, Cisco released a fresh line of security products that it claimed could thwart elusive network threats such as phishing, viruses, and DoS attacks. With this news, IT security professionals had both rave but very cautious reviews.

See Also: Cisco Systems, Inc.; Denial of Service (DoS); Internet; Network; Phishing; Virus.