How Legal Wiretaps Could Let Hackers In

A scheme that gives US law enforcement authorities with a warrant access to networking equipment could also be exploited by illegal snoopers.

Tom Cross, manager of X-Force research, a security unit at IBM, discovered this after reviewing details of a lawful intercept scheme used to access equipment made by the networking giant Cisco. Cross says he identified weaknesses in the communication protocol that could let hackers perform illegal wiretaps. Cross focused on Cisco because it's the only company to have made the details of its system public, but he believes similar vulnerabilities exist with other intercept schemes.