Any business executive will agree that the compromising of infrastructure & communications systems brings about a level of excitement that's best left for the cinema. There's an incredible amount of unrest and buzz across the industry as of late - the stark realization that devices we use daily can easily be compromised without the proper vigilance. Simply stated, Ang Cui has made a brilliant academic career out of attacking common embedded systems (routers, printers, phones), while Cisco has earned the trust of consumers for reliability. This event has caused a likewise divide, and Cisco are hard at work to close that gap as soon as possible. Eavesdropping on the Air Force One, seems a laughable circumstance, though it is a feasible one given recent developments. Although 'enlightened' to their technological shortcomings, the lack of authentication and security in existing systems has the potential to hurt Cisco big time.
Everyone loves a little flexibility in their communications, but not to the extent an intruder can commandeer them for evil, hacking, or otherwise. No matter how you'd like to describe vulnerability to the tech savvy with poor intentions - this, is not good. Cisco phones run operating system based on Unix, which has been found to contain "very exploitable bugs". Developing a device amusingly called "the Thingp3wn3r", a scientist at Columbia was able to "take control" of 7900 series Cisco IP Phone, which fast became the microphoned marionette of the well-intended and educated hackers.
Originally featured in Forbes, this plight of Cisco phones was colorfully exposed by Ang Cui, a fifth year grad student from the Columbia University Intrusion Detection Systems Lab and co-founder of Red Balloon Security, in front of a presumably ambivalent crowd at the Amphion Forum in San Francisco. Cui called devices such as Cisco-branded IP Phones, among other similar devices, "general-purpose computers".
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