IOS worm clarification

Mon Sep 19 20:20:58 UTC 2005

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From: Andrei Mikhailovsky <mlists at arhont.com>
Reply-To: andrei at arhont.com
To: ciscoioshehehe at yandex.ru
Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Cisco IOS hacked?

Hello,

Being a co-author of the "Hacking Exposed Cisco Networks" book and one
of the co-founders of Arhont Ltd an Information Security Company that is
doing the research for the book on Cisco Devices I have to make the
following comments about the article in SecurityLab.ru:

The russian article (http://www.securitylab.ru/news/240415.php) has been
badly paraphrased from the livejournal of one of the authors/researchers
of the book. As a result of this outrageously inaccurate paraphrasing of
the article many confusions and misunderstandings have been circling on
the security related sources and mailing lists.

Some of the issues addressed in the article are true and Arhont is
currently preparing a formal advisory that will be sent to PSIRT.

Among the discovered issues are multiple vulnerabilities in EIGRP
implementation. Also, authors have addressed the _theoretical_ aspects
of an algorithm for cross-platform worm that could spread in IOS based
devices. The existence of the practical implementation of such warm is a
complete lie. Let me assure that there has been no development nor the
desire to develop such code by the authors of the book. The theoretical
methodology and algorithms will be also discussed with PSIRT at the
appropriate time.

In addition, there has been some minor inconsistencies of the
livejournal postings that will be soon addressed and edited.

If you have any comments on this topic we would be glad to address them.

--
Andrei Mikhailovsky
Arhont Ltd - Information Security
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