A scramble at Cisco exposes uncomfortable truths about US cyber defence

The Wikileaks documents described how the CIA had learned more than a year ago how to exploit flaws in Cisco's widely used Internet switches.

SAN FRANCISCO: When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange disclosed earlier this month that his anti-secrecy group had obtained CIA tools for hacking into technology products made by US companies, security engineers at Cisco Systems swung into action.

The Wikileaks documents described how the Central Intelligence Agency had learned more than a year ago how to exploit flaws in Cisco's widely used Internet switches, which direct electronic traffic, to enable eavesdropping.