FBI probes whistle-blower

Mike Lynn resigned from Internet Security Systems after his company and Cisco threatened to sue him if he spoke at the Black Hat Security conference about the Cisco router vulnerability. He did speak at the conference and, although demonstrated what hackers could do to a router if they exploited the flaw, did not reveal technical details that would allow anyone to exploit the bug without considerable research. The two companies had known in advance the subject matter of Lynn’s talk. While they originally supported it, at the last minute both companies tried to halt the presentation. They threatened Lynn with a lawsuit, reports Wired News. And they made good on their threat after his appearance, when they filed a restraining order to prevent him from saying anything else about the flaw. Lynn has now been tipped off that the FBI is investigating him for violating trade secrets belonging to his former employee. Full Wired News report Read an additional AustralianIT report

Meanwhile, hackers have raced to expose the flaw, CNET News reports. While the hackers said they had no intention of hijacking e-commerce payments, reading private e-mail or launching any malicious attacks, they stated that they wanted to illustrate the need for Cisco customers to update their software to defend against such possibilities. Full CNET News report