Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Cisco Webex call recording released by Russia

Wow:

The German Ministry of Defense (Bundeswehr) has confirmed that a recording of a call between high-ranking officials discussing war efforts in Ukraine, leaked by Russian media, is legitimate.

Senior government officials have also confirmed Russian reports that the call was hosted on and tapped via Cisco's WebEx video conferencing platform rather than any kind of secure, military-grade comms.

Roderich Kiesewetter, deputy chairman of the German parliament's oversight committee, said the Bundeswehr leak was possibly caused by a Russian agent inside the WebEx call or the Bundeswehr's implementation of it, but the country is still working on discovering how the intrusion took place.

As someone who worked at Cisco (in both their security and Webex business units) I can say that Cisco takes security very, very seriously.  Not knowing more than this article, it very well may be a mole.

7 comments:

Michael said...

As I understand it security is limited by the users. People who are lax personally with security are the weakest link.

As at least two of the 4 were in hotel rooms at the time that makes security interesting at best. Secure room through secure links to secure rooms I'd think were harder to eavesdrop on.

Also, I kind of doubt any server can keep out real Intelligence agencies.

HMS Defiant said...

It's hard to believe that we have such idiots running NATO now. When was this sort of discussion ever something conducted outside a SCIF in the modern era?

Highlander said...

This is all part of a psyop that these morons (NATO, EU, US et el) think is really slick. Marcon declares we will send NATO troops to fight the Russians in Ukraine, Scholz and others declare that ain't happening. Luftwaffe makes an unsecure meeting making threats to use Taurus to hit the Crimea bridge. All trying to poke Putin into doing something they can use as an excuse to..go to war in the Ukraine.

Aaron C. de Bruyn said...

> I can say that Cisco takes security very, very seriously

I hate to be the voice of dissent...but my wife takes deadlines very seriously. She watches in all seriousness as they go zipping by.

Cisco has had way too many incidents of hard-coded passwords or keys in their routers and switches for me to trust them.

Richard said...

There was a report about a follow up conversation that used 1234 as the password.

Tree Mike said...

In todays "crisis of competence", Nato is simply incompetent. I don't give Russia any super sleuthing credit, they are simply competent, unlike the West.

VinceWhirlwind said...

Chances are reasonable that the Russians simply had surveillance in the room and the guy wasn't even using a headset.