Counterfeit Cisco gear ended up in US military bases, used in combat operations
Counterfeit Cisco gear ended up in US military bases, used in combat operations
"One of the largest counterfeit-trafficking operations ever."
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That's.... Bad. Like really bad.
Why is this allowed by the DoD?
Because the DoD isn't as organized as many perceive. Source: me
How are you your own source? Doesn't make sense.
I'm a network engineer in the DoD lol
Sources on this?
That dude gives "trust me bro, my dad works for Nintendo" vibes.
The DoD will soon be requiring itself and Contractors to start following Rev 5 of the NIST SP 800-53 Risk Management Framework. In this revision are more robust controls for Supply-side security, which the DoD has been trying to incorporate for over 10 years.
Americans should know that the military and DOD and it's contractors do their best to purchase authentic hardware from reputable vendors, but there are exceptions and alternate procurement allowances if the need is great and the standard more secure lines are unavailable or simply on back order.
It's usually then that some of the fake hardware makes it into use
800-53 Rev 5 is such a pain in the ass to implement fully but holy shit is it much needed. Bad actors out there everywhere and if followed to the letter, those controls will save you almost every step of the way. "Almost" because there will always be a new method to infiltrate an organization or agency, but the damage control built into these controls should lessen the impact regardless.
It’s big and complicated. Keeping track of where supplies are coming from is a difficult task. You can’t police every employee at all times let alone every purchase.
You can at least avoid Amazon
Haha. This is a good one. They used to (maybe still) not allow 3rd party sellers like eBay, but Amazon has been used for a long time. I'm not sure why one was okay but not they other. Anyway, they would take a big operational hit, if they couldn't use Amazon.
Say a system goes down during a critical time, either training or a real mission. They need a part that they could order overnight and have it up by morning or maybe sooner if it's on that Amazon now thing. Or they could wait and try to source it out. Hope you can contact them, depending on the time. A lot of places that make equipment for the government have business hours. Depending on contracts and everything there would be a lot to get into, but the point is buying for Amazon is sometimes the best place to get the item from in a quick manner.
Ands that's why you have backups and spares.
I agree and there is for certain known vital pieces that go down. Sometimes other parts go down or a part and the backup won't work.
The DOD has been trying to save money by lowering the on hand stock of the using unit and having most of what they need at a higher level. That higher level might be off and not able to support.
It's not.