Cisco spends over $600 million to address security issues

It seems that many of Cisco products developed between 2005 and 2010 is facing a degradation issue. The Cisco products include routers, switches and modules and have either outlived their warranty date or are near the end of their lives.

Cisco’s policy of fix-on-fail helps replace those products that have reached the end of their life cycle or are near the point of being inoperable. Cisco is to spend an astonishing $650 million to fix this issue. However, many users of Cisco products are concerned as replacing the product might not be possible for them if it forms a core or critical part of their business.

The problem seems to be because of a chip which Cisco had bought from a single supplier between 2005 and 2010. These chips are vital to the working of the product and have been seen to be faulty and die sometimes when the machine is powered up or turned off. Of course, the malfunctioning of the chip can make the network drive stop working or make the company network go down. The company knew about the problem since 2010, but it was only in 2012 that it decided to stop shipping of products with the faulty chip after it identified the faulty component.

Since 2012, it has been replacing the products already delivered on a case to case basis, on the basis of consumer report. The good thing though is that all products with the malfunctioning chip will be replaced even if the product itself is outside the warranty.