Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Seller of Counterfeit Cisco Gear Heads to Prison

Operators Sold Networking Gear Supported by Counterfeit Cisco Labels, Boxes, Manuals and Serial Numbers Obtained from Cisco Support Site

After selling $1 million worth of counterfeit Cisco equipment through a business operated with a co-defendant, Christopher Myers, 42, of Leawood, Kansas, has been sentenced to 33 months in federal prison.

Operators Sold Networking Gear Supported by Counterfeit Cisco Labels, Boxes, Manuals and Serial Numbers Obtained from Cisco Support Site

After selling $1 million worth of counterfeit Cisco equipment through a business operated with a co-defendant, Christopher Myers, 42, of Leawood, Kansas, has been sentenced to 33 months in federal prison.

ArrestedAccording to the FBI, in his plea, Myers admitted to operating a business under the name of Deals Direct, Inc., from a warehouse in Merriam, Kansas with co-defendant Timothy Weatherly of Overland Park, Kansas. From 2005 through November, 2006, Myers and Weatherly imported computer equipment from China, putting counterfeit Cisco labels on the equipment and selling the counterfeit equipment through various online channels including the company’s own Web site and on eBay. Myers and Weatherly packed the products in Cisco boxes with counterfeit Cisco manuals, selling them as genuine Cisco equipment.

Beyond using Cisco labeled packaging and manuals, the two went one step further, and obtained legitimate serial numbers by accessing Cisco’s confidential serial number verification Web site.

Working with a manufacturer in Hong Kong, the conspirators used multiple shippers and other methods to attempt to keep shipments from being seized by customs officials. When investigators served a search warrant Nov. 8, 2006, in Merriam, Kansas, they found hundreds of counterfeit Cisco labels, stickers, boxes, and documentation as well as thousands of counterfeit Cisco goods.

Myers pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiring to bring goods into the United States by false statements, to smuggle goods into the United States, and to traffic in counterfeit goods. Co-defendant Weatherly is set for sentencing Oct. 3.

While cases like this are certainly not good for companies like Cisco and other technology vendors that must continually battle counterfeit products, this isn’t what really scares the government and the security industry. A Department of Homeland Security official last week warned that hardware manufactured overseas and shipped to the U.S. was arriving pre-loaded with security bugs. According to ThreatPost, the DHS and Department of Defense have established a joint task force charged with looking at ways to ensure the strength and integrity of the U.S. technology supply chain over the long term.

Related Reading:

• Programmer Heads to Prison After Planting Cash-Spitting Malware on ATMs

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

• Man Pleads Guilty to Hacking Neighbor’s Wireless, Sending Threats against Vice President

• Former Goldman Sachs Programmer Found Guilty After Stealing Computer Code

 Chinese National Pleads Guilty to Stealing Ford Trade Secrets

 Akamai Employee Arrested, Accused of Trying to Sell Information to Foreign Government

Written By

For more than 15 years, Mike Lennon has been closely monitoring the threat landscape and analyzing trends in the National Security and enterprise cybersecurity space. In his role at SecurityWeek, he oversees the editorial direction of the publication and is the Director of several leading security industry conferences around the world.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.