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Cisco patches high severity flaws in its Web Security Appliance

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

Cisco patches high severity flaws in its Web Security Appliance

The flaws can be exploited with specifically crafted HTTP requests to cause denial-of-service conditions

Cisco Systems has fixed four denial-of-service vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to cause Web Security Appliance devices to stop processing traffic correctly.

The Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA) is a line of security devices that inspect Web traffic going in and out of an organization in order to detect malware, prevent data leaks, and enforce Internet access policies for users and applications. The devices run an operating system called Cisco AsyncOS.

One of the four DoS vulnerabilities fixed Wednesday by Cisco stems from how the OS handles a specific HTTP response code. An attacker could send a specifically crafted HTTP request in order to consume the entire memory of an affected device.

If this happens, the device will no longer accept new incoming connection requests, Cisco said in an advisory.

All Cisco AsyncOS versions older than 9.0.1-162 are affected. Users are advised to upgrade to this version. Version 9.1 is also unaffected.

Another DoS vulnerability is caused by a lack of proper input validation of the packets that make up HTTP POST requests. The flaw can be exploited through specifically crafted HTTP requests and can lead to the proxy process becoming unresponsive and the WSA reloading.

Only AsyncOS version 8.0 is affected by this vulnerability. Users can upgrade to 8.0.6-119 or 9.0.1-162, which contains patches for all four flaws, Cisco said in an advisory.

The third vulnerability stems from a failure to free memory when a file range for cached content is requested through the WSA. By opening multiple connections and requesting file ranges, an attacker can cause the WSA to run out of memory and stop passing traffic.

Versions 8.5 to 8.8 of AsyncOS are affected and Cisco recommends upgrading to 9.0.1-162.

The fourth vulnerability occurs because AsyncOS does not properly allocate space for the HTTP header and an expected HTTP payload. Exploiting this flaw can cause the proxy process to reload and the traffic to be stopped.

The flaw affects AsyncOS versions 8.8 and lower. Cisco has fixed the flaw in versions 8.5.3-069 for the 8.5 branch and 9.0.1-162.

In addition to the WSA flaws, Cisco also patched a moderate severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in the Web interface of the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Central Software.

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Review: Cisco, Linksys lead the way in smart switches

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Lindsay Posted in Tech Leave a comment

Smart switches offer functionality found in managed switches, such as VLANs, port mirroring, and link aggregation. However, smart switches are typically targeted towards small and midsized networks that don’t need the complete management capabilities and fine-tuning offered in fully managed switches.

We looked at switches from six vendors, the same vendors from our recent small business router review. So if you’re building an SMB network, reference both reviews to find a matching router and switch that meets your needs. Vendors include the big-name Cisco, popular home and business brands D-Link, Linksys, and Netgear, and also lesser-known names DrayTek and UTT Technologies. We setup and evaluated each switch and in this review we compare products in regard to price, features, and user-friendliness.

If you’re looking for a solid switch and can afford a higher price, check out the Cisco or Linksys units. Both offer very similar features and functionality. UTT Technologies is a more economical option but lacks PoE and some advanced features, such as auto VLAN functionality, RMON, and 802.1X authentication support. However, UTT offers remote management of other switches, which could be useful if you’re planning on having

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Cisco will need to tackle these high-tech issues in 2016

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

Disaggregation, security, software licensing all part of challenges Cisco faces.

As it sets its sights on becoming the No. 1 IT company in the industry, Cisco will continue to face challenges and opportunities in virtually every IT market. Here’s an arbitrary list of 10 areas that will impact Cisco in 2016 as the company evolves to address emerging trends that are shaping the industry in the coming year and beyond.

The antithesis of Cisco is disaggregation, taking off the shelf switching hardware and mixing and matching multivendor and open source operating systems to run it. It decouples the dependencies and integration of the hardware and software, which Cisco argues is an integration and total cost of ownership nightmare. But the big cloud companies are using it and eventually the enterprise, so Cisco will need to continue to address it by offering compelling consumption options in addition to competitive product. Perhaps uncoupling its own? (Read all Network World’s predictions for next year.)

One of those consumption options – and perhaps the most lucrative – is the subscription and licensing model Cisco is adopting. CEO Chuck Robbins recently told us that any product customers want to purchase as-a-service is on the table. ACI’s policy engine could soon be a cloud service. Perhaps Cisco could offer an interesting as-a-service option for uncoupled hardware and software, whether its own or partners.

These consumption options will hinge on the uptake in cloud, which is not negatively affecting Cisco sales, as many had anticipated. Cisco and HP are regularly recognized as the top two cloud infrastructure players; and Cisco was cited along with Amazon and Microsoft as a beneficiary of cloud. Cisco’s Nexus 9000 switches have been popular, more in standalone NX-OS mode than in ACI mode; but Cisco’s been setting the pace in SDN, and a cloud-based group policy network service might build on that. Nonetheless, Cisco’s challenge will be to continue this momentum in 2016.

That depends for the most part on customer spending. IT spending is expected to rise over 6.7% between 2015 and 2017, more so on software (+17% from 2014-17) than on hardware (-13.6%), according to Barclays. Gartner is a bit more conservative, forecasting 1.5% growth in 2016 from 2015, to $3.6 trillion.

Security spending is expected to dominate IT spending, making up as much as 75% by some estimates. Cisco has its sights set on returning to double digit growth in security this fiscal quarter, which ends in January. Cisco registered 7% annual growth in its fiscal first quarter and only 4% in fiscal 2015’s fourth quarter. Recent acquisitions like OpenDNSand Lancope will be key to accelerating that.

Spending in security or any other IT area will of course be gated by the macro economy – global currency valuations, geopolitical issues, etc. Even though it was “executing well in a challenging environment” in the first quarter, Cisco’s forecasts for second quarter revenue and earnings are below Wall Street expectations. Results in Canada in Q1 were weak because of the declining value of the Canadian dollar; and even though China was a strong theater for Cisco in the first quarter, CEO Robbins says continued uncertainty around the Chinese economy and currency situation was “tough from an orders perspective.” There are still cyber espionage tensions, however, between the US and China but Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers believes the governments can achieve a network control ‘win-win’ with Cisco’s help.

Cisco also expects – and needs – wins from recent partnerships and acquisitions. Robbins said he expected deals to pay dividends in the second half of 2016. One such partnership is the $100 million relationship with China’s Inspur to jointly develop IT products for the Chinese market combining Cisco networking with Inspur’s cloud and data center products. Six months ago, Cisco pledged to invest $10 billion in China.

Another partnership is the one with Ericsson, a clear response to the industry consolidation gripping the IT industry. Perhaps more a direct response to the Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent tie-up, the Ericsson deal may also signal how Cisco plans to respond to megadeals between rivals and partners, like Dell/EMC. Perhaps too big to merge, partnerships might enable Cisco and another titan to respond more quickly to market demands while the merging competitors are bogged down with operational integration. No matter what course Cisco chooses to pursue, consolidation among its rivals, and its partners, will be an issue the company will have to continue to respond to in 2016 and beyond.

Partnerships and acquisitions may help Cisco in 2016 recover growth in its core businesses of routing and switching. Another aid might be the “alpha project” internal start-up strategy CEO Robbins favors over spin-ins.

Cisco’s router business declined 8% in the first quarter due to timing issues with some big transactions. Robbins expects growth to return this current fiscal quarter, and referred to new routing products developed by Cisco’s alpha internal start-up program fueling that growth. Cisco is also looking for an inflection point in data center switching in the second half of 2016 in which newer products like the Nexus 9000s and 3000s will offset some of the decline in the company’s historical architectures. While switching growth was 3% in the first quarter, analysts only expect about 1% revenue growth in Q2 and perhaps less than 2% for the entire fiscal 2016 year. As it did with routing, Cisco might lean on the alpha start-up teams to accelerate switching growth in 2016.

Acceleration is the operative word with Cisco’s Internet of Everything (IoE) ambitions in 2016. Cisco is one of the main drivers behind IoE and Internet of Things (IoT), and Gartner expects the phenomenon to explode next year and beyond. That pace at which cities and countries digitize, sensor networks expand and machine-to-machine communications spread will be a key determinant in Cisco’s growth in 2016 and thereafter. Cisco could get a near-term boost from a new alliance with Philips for connected office lighting.

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Cisco switch software vulnerable

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Lindsay Posted in Tech Leave a comment

IOS XE 16.1.1 for Catalyst 3850, 3650 could allow attackers to reload devices

Cisco this week issued a security advisory on a vulnerability in its IOS XE software. IOS XE Release 16.1.1 could allow an attacker to cause an affected device to reload.

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The vulnerability is due to incorrect processing of packets that have a source MAC address of 0000:0000:0000, the advisory states. An attacker could exploit it by sending a frame that has a source MAC address of all zeros to an affected device.

Cisco has released software updates that address this vulnerability. There are no workarounds that mitigate it, the company says.

The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerability, the advisory states.

Earlier this week, Cisco said it was reviewing its products to ensure no backdoor corruptions, or “malicious modifications” exist after Juniper announced that its ScreenOS firewall operating system has been vulnerable for years.

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Cisco SDN user plans OpenStack integration

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

Cloud provider merging ACI’s network fabric with open source storage and compute framework

At last count, only 15% of the now 2,000 combined customers for Cisco System’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and VMware’s NSX SDN products were using them in production mode.

One such Cisco customer, cloud provider Key Information Systems of Agoura Hills, CA, is using ACI to provide cloud-enabled data center services to organizations in Southern California. KeyInfo is looking for ACI to provide it with multi-tenancy security, automated application-based network provisioning, and scalability of virtualized and non-virtualized workloads.

Over time, KeyInfo will combine ACI with an OpenStack managed hosting offering to provide an application policy-based networking component to OpenStack’s compute and storage-centric cloud fabric, says Clayton Weise, director of cloud services at KeyInfo. But for now, ACI and Cisco’s Nexus 9000 switches are replacing an aged Catalyst 6500 infrastructure with a higher performance fabric, and setting the foundation for new network-as-a-service offerings from the KeyInfo cloud.

“We did some fairly limited deployments of it early on,” Weise said, describing KeyInfo’s current ACI deployment as 12 leaf switches, four spines and three APIC controllers clustered together. “We were using it to replace Cat 6500 chassis. It was a migration in terms of moving the cabling and everything over. The next phase for us is we’re really going to use some of the functionality more heavily in our environment.”

That next phase is a bit more of a transition, Weise says, because KeyInfo also has an existing investment of Cisco Nexus 5000s to be migrated to the Nexus 9000s. It will take a bit more time because KeyInfo has to do a lot more design work to take advantage of more ACI functionality, he says.

After evaluating Cisco ACI, Juniper Networks’ Contrail and Arista Networks’ Software Defined Cloud Networking, KeyInfo selected ACI because of Cisco’s incumbency with the cloud provider, but also to instill some switch-based policy management of a hybrid, multivendor environment of server colocation, virtual infrastructure and legacy IBM AS/400 and AIX systems that need to participate in VXLANs.

“Having that type of encapsulation and de-encapsulation of what they’re doing in the VXLAN, doing that at the switch made a lot more sense for us,” Weise says. “It allowed us to merge those environments without a whole lot of difficulty.”

KeyInfo is also looking at extending the ACI fabric out across its DWDM optical network and into the customer premises. So longer term, ACI will be offered as a service from KeyInfo in addition to supporting the cloud provider’s own infrastructure.

And that service will ostensibly be application policy-based networking integrated with OpenStack’s compute and storage capabilities.

“OpenStack is pretty modular when it comes to compute and storage,” Weise says. “But when it comes to networking it’s a little bit more monolithic. ACI is the direction we’re going to go because it gives us the best flexibility.”

It will also ease implementation of firewalls and other security services that go beyond OpenStack’s “namespaces on a Linux box” security, he says.

“For a lot of our client base, that is totally unacceptable,” Weise says. “Plus, some might have specific reasons for why they want to use Palo Alto Networks (firewalls) or (Cisco) ASA with intrusion protection. That kind of capability doesn’t come easy with the way OpenStack is now so we have to use ACI to add network security-as-a-service on top of the services that are already there.”

Weise says a mix of different technologies will be used in conjunction with OpenStack group-based policy and ACI group-based policy to meet the “stringent requirements” of KeyInfo’s customers.

KeyInfo is not using the OpFlex policy protocol, developed by Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Citrix and Sungard, to push group-based policies out to the infrastructure, though it is an option, Weise says. Another is middleware from a third-party vendor to do that through ACI API calls, he says.

“We’re trying to stay away from being too much of a middleman” for translating and instantiating policies, Weise says.

The biggest challenge in implementing ACI was leaving the old CLI routines behind when defining, configuring and administering group-based policy, Weise says. The biggest benefit is the automation of configuring end point groups vs. manually touching each device in that group.

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Cisco acquires security consultancy

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

UK-based Portcullis will allow expansion, complement Neohapsis buy

Cisco this week said it intends to purchase Portcullis, a privately held cybersecurity consultancy based in the United Kingdom.

Portcullis provides cybersecurity services to enterprise and the government sector clients, mostly in Europe. Cisco said the acquisition will help accelerate its own security services business and expand its security consulting services outside of North America.

Cisco said it will also complement last year’s acquisition of Neohapsis, a security consulting firm that evaluates corporate security, risk and compliance, including payment card industry, HIPAA and HITECH compliance, security assessment, penetration testing, incident response and risk management.

Portcullis’ security consulting services include assessments to identify vulnerabilities, forensic testing, first responder training to prepare for attacks, policy review and creation, security awareness training, and overall security posture audits. Cisco says this portfolio will help it offer a range of security, risk and compliance services to help clients overcome operational and technical security challenges, and anticipate and respond to new threats.

The Portcullis acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2016. Portcullis will join the Cisco Security Solutions organization headed by Vice President James Mobley.

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Cisco to buy more security

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

Investment banks see M&A on tap as company looks to triple share of enterprise spend

Cisco’s looking to double or triple its share of enterprise security infrastructure spend, from 9% to 20% and 30%, according to SeekingAlpha, citing investment banking analysis from meetings with Cisco management. That means it will be looking to acquire more security companies.

Cisco believes the typical large enterprise has to deal with over 54 security vendors. In an effort to “simplify” that scenario, Cisco will acquire point product companies to assimilate into its end-to-end architecture sales strategy, thereby consolidating the security industry, increasing its share of spend, and decreasing the number of security vendors an enterprise has to deal with.

Investment bank UBS believes Cisco will make smaller, more targeted acquisitions rather than a large one involving, for example, Palo Alto Networks or CheckPoint, the SeekingAlpha post states. Gaps in Cisco’s security portfolio include identity access, data loss management, and application security testing.

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Cisco to make $10 billion investment in China

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

Cisco plans to invest US$10 billion in China, although its sales in the country are slumping due in part to persistent security concerns surrounding U.S. technology.

The investment marks a “new chapter” for the company, and it includes agreements with the Chinese government to expand in areas including research, and job creation, Cisco said on Wednesday.

The $10 billion investment will be made over several years, and will help spur technology innovation in the country, Cisco said, without further elaborating. It called the move a “renewed commitment” suggesting that the investment would be added on top of its existing operational expenses in China. Cisco could not be immediately reached for comment.

As part of the investment, the company has signed agreements with China’s National Development and Reform Commission, a high-level government agency, and with an association connected to the Ministry of Education.

Cisco has been in the Chinese market for over two decades supplying networking equipment, including what’s used in the country’s Internet infrastructure. But its business in the country has struggled in recent years due to “geopolitical challenges”, according to the company.

Following leaks about the U.S.’s secret surveillance programs, China has made cybersecurity a priority. As a result, the country is considering stricter regulations that could push U.S. tech firms out of the market.

In Cisco’s case, it also had to contend with competition from Huawei Technologies and ZTE, two Chinese companies that have become major players in the networking sector and are moving into enterprise services.

But even as China focuses more on cybersecurity, Cisco said on Wednesday it’s committed to the market. The company announced the investment as both its outgoing CEO John Chambers and incoming CEO Chuck Robbins met Chinese government officials.

Cisco will continue to “work closely” with the Chinese government and its partners to better meet demands for the market, Cisco’s head of the Greater China Owen Chan, said in a statement.

Back in 2007, Cisco made another huge investment in the country that reached $16 billion. Most of the money was geared toward doubling its manufacturing.

The market opportunity in China is huge. The country has over 600 million Internet users, and there’s a growing need for more data centers, and faster networking infrastructure.

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Cisco becomes a Big Data analytics provider with ‘mist’ computing

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Lindsay Posted in Tech Leave a comment

The latest bet for Cisco is big data analytics.

Last week, Cisco celebrated its 30th anniversary. Over the years Cisco has made many big bets to reach the dominant position it is in today. As part of the celebration, Cisco held its first ever Global Editor Conference, using the event to lay out the organization’s vision for the next big bet, and that’s becoming a big data analytics provider.

If this bet pays off, it could be huge for Cisco. CEO John Chambers has reiterated over and over that Cisco has a goal of becoming the industry’s No. 1 IT solution provider, and becoming an analytics provider is certainly another step toward achieving this goal. On Thursday, I dialed into an analyst session on this topic and, as expected, there was a fair amount of skepticism as to why any enterprise would buy analytics from Cisco.

To me, this question is like asking why anyone would buy telephony from Cisco. Or servers. Or cloud applications. The fact is, computing and big data are becoming more network-centric, so IT should care about it more. This is Cisco’s opportunity to innovate and capture share in a new market, like it has done so many times in the past. Additionally, Cisco has beefed up its services organization and data center portfolio to help its customers consume these technologies, a key to all IT vendors today.
See also: 30 years of Cisco: The networking giant’s boldest predictions over the years

Cisco’s differentiator is that the analytics tools won’t just be located in the core or edge of a network. Cisco will be pushing analytics all the way out to the extreme edge of a network by having the tools built into its network devices. If the core can be thought of as the cloud and the edge considered the fog, one could think of the extreme edge as being “mist” computing – a more dispersed version of the fog, which is a dispersed version of the cloud.

Cisco’s thesis, which I believe is correct, is that analytics is best done as close to the data as possible. Take for example a retail environment. If the store collects information on a customer and wants to analyze the data and take action, why should that data be backhauled all the way to a cloud resource thousands of miles away, or a fog resource hundreds of miles away? Even tens of miles is too far. Instead, the analytics should be done in the store. This means decisions can be made in seconds instead of hours or even days.

Cisco is calling this “Connected Analysis” for the Internet of Everything, and it’s the connectedness that gives Cisco its edge. Cisco has far more connected touch points in most businesses than any other company, and it can pull data in to be analyzed from its own networked devices (phones, cameras, collaboration endpoints, network devices, etc.) as well as sensors, mobile devices, and other third-party end points.

Cisco is going to market with Connected Analysis with packaged offerings for specific industries, such as retail, travel, or stadiums, or use cases like the ones built around collaboration or mobility.

The Internet of Things is about more than just connecting devices to a common network. The value comes from the collecting of data, analytics done on the data, and the ability to make critical decisions quickly. Cisco’s Connected Analytics strategy is targeted at making this process operate at network speeds. Success here will go a long way toward helping Cisco hit that goal of becoming the No. 1 IT vendor.

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Cisco patches traffic snooping flaw in its networking gear

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Lindsay Posted in Cisco Leave a comment

The vulnerability affects the OSPF routing protocol implementation on Cisco networking equipment

Cisco Systems said attackers could disrupt or intercept traffic in many of its networking products unless a new security update is applied to the software they run.

The issue affects the implementation of the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol and its Link State Advertisement (LSA) database in particular. This protocol is used for determining the shortest routing paths inside an Autonomous System (AS) — a collection of routing policies for IP (Internet Protocol) addresses controlled by ISPs and large organizations.

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The OSPF protocol is commonly used on large enterprise networks. It gathers link state information from available routers into a database in order to built a network topology map which is then used to determine the best route for IP traffic.

“This vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated attacker to take full control of the OSPF Autonomous System (AS) domain routing table, blackhole traffic, and intercept traffic,” Cisco said in a security advisory.

Exploiting the vulnerability doesn’t require authentication and can be achieved remotely by sending specifically crafted OSPF LSA type 1 packets via unicast or multicast to the vulnerable device. The packets could contain false routes that would then get propagated throughout the entire OSPF AS domain.

However, the attacker does need to determine some information in advance in order to launch a successful attack, Cisco said. This information includes the network placement and IP address of the targeted router, the LSA database sequence numbers and the router ID of the OSPF Designated Router (DR).

The vulnerability affects networking devices running most versions of Cisco IOS, IOS-XE and NX-OS operating systems if they are configured for OSPF operations. It also affects the software running on the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA), Cisco ASA Service Module (ASA-SM), Cisco Pix Firewall, Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM) and the Cisco ASR 5000 carrier class platform.

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