Cisco Systems

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"Cisco" redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Sysco, Sisq, Sisko, or Certis CISCO.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco Systems Logo
Type
Public
Traded as
NASDAQ: CSCO
Dow Jones Industrial Average Component
S&P 500 Component
NASDAQ-100 Component
Industry
Networking equipment
Founded
San Francisco, California, U.S.
(1984)
Founder
Leonard Bosack
Sandy Lerner
Richard Troiano
Headquarters
San Jose, California, U.S.[1]
Coordinates
Coordinates: 37.4106394N 121.958166W
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
John Chambers
(Chairman & CEO)
Gary Moore
(President and COO)
Products
Networking Device
Network Management
Cisco IOS and NX-OS Software
Interface and Module
Optical networking
Storage area networks
Wireless, Telepresence, VOIP, Security
Datacenter
List of Cisco Products
Revenue
Decrease US$ 47.142 billion (2014)[2]
Operating income
Decrease US$ 9.345 billion (2014)[2]
Net income
Decrease US$ 7.853 billion (2014)[2]
Total assets
Increase US$ 105.134 billion (2014)[2]
Total equity
Decrease US$ 56.654 billion (2014)[2]
Number of employees
74,043 (2014)[3]
Subsidiaries
List of acquisitions
Website
Cisco.com
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sa
n Jose, California, that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment.[
4] The stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8, 2009, and
is also included in the S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 Index, NASDAQ-100 Index
and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index.[5]
Contents
1 History
1.1 1984 1995: early years
1.2 1996 2009: Internet and silicon intelligence
1.3 2006 2012: The Human Network

1.4 2013 Present: The Internet of Everything

2 Media and awards
3 Acquisitions
4 Products and services
4.1 Corporate market
4.2 Small businesses
4.3 Home user
4.4 Hardware
4.5 Software
4.6 VoIP services
4.7 Hosted Collaboration Solution
4.8 Network Emergency Response
5 Cisco Career Certifications
6 Criticisms and controversy
6.1 Shareholder relations
6.2 Intellectual property disputes
6.3 Censorship in China
6.4 Tax fraud investigation
6.5 Antitrust lawsuit
6.6 Remotely monitoring users' connections
6.7 Firewall backdoor developed by NSA
6.8 Spherix Patent Suit
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
History
One of the many buildings on the Cisco Systems campus in San Jose
1984 1995: early years
Cisco Systems was founded in December 1984 by Leonard Bosack, who was in charge
of the Stanford University computer science department's computers, Sandy Lerner
, who managed the Graduate School of Business' computers, and Richard Troiano.[6
][7]
Despite founding Cisco in 1984, Bosack, along with Kirk Lougheed, continued to w
ork at Stanford on Cisco's first product. It consisted of exact replicas of Stan
ford's "Blue Box" router and a stolen[8] copy of the University's multiple-proto
col router software. The software was originally written some years earlier at S
tanford medical school by research engineer William Yeager. Bosack and Lougheed
adapted it into what became the foundation for Cisco IOS. On July 11, 1986, Bosa
ck and Lougheed were forced to resign from Stanford and the university contempla
ted filing criminal complaints against Cisco and its founders for the theft of i
ts software, hardware designs and other intellectual properties. In 1987, Stanfo
rd licensed the router software and two computer boards to Cisco.
In addition to Bosack, Lerner and Lougheed, Greg Satz, a programmer, and Richard
Troiano, who handled sales, completed the early Cisco team. The company's first
CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988.[9] In 1988, John
Morgridge was appointed CEO.
The name "Cisco" was derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the
company's engineers insisted on using the lower case "cisco" in its early years
. The logo is intended to depict the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.[10]
On February 16, 1990, Cisco Systems went public (with a market capitalization of
$224 million) and was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. On August 28, 1990,
Lerner was fired; upon hearing the news, her husband Bosack resigned in protest.
The couple walked away from Cisco with $170 million, 70% of which was committed

to their own charity.[11]

Although Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell dedicated network n
odes,[12] it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers suppor
ting multiple network protocols.[13] Classical, CPU-based architecture of early
Cisco devices coupled with flexibility of operating system IOS allowed for keepi
ng up with evolving technology needs by means of frequent software upgrades. Som
e popular models of that time (such as Cisco 2500) managed to stay in production
for almost a decade virtually unchanged a rarity in high-tech industry. Although
Cisco was strongly rooted in the enterprise environment, the company was quick t
o capture the emerging service provider environment, entering the SP market with
new, high-capacity product lines such as Cisco 7000 and Cisco 8500.
Between 1992 and 1994, Cisco acquired several companies in Ethernet switching, s
uch as Kalpana, Grand Junction, and most notably, Mario Mazzola's Crescendo Comm
unications which together formed the Catalyst business unit. At the time, the co
mpany envisioned layer 3 routing and layer 2 (Ethernet, Token Ring) switching as
complementary functions of different intelligence and architecture the former was
slow and complex, the latter was fast but simple. This philosophy dominated the
company's product lines throughout the 1990s.
In 1995, John Morgridge was succeeded by John Chambers.[14]
1996 2009: Internet and silicon intelligence
The phenomenal growth of the Internet in mid-to-late 1990s quickly changed the t
elecom landscape. As the Internet Protocol (IP) became widely adopted, the impor
tance of multi-protocol routing declined. Nevertheless, Cisco managed to catch t
he Internet wave, with products ranging from modem access shelves (AS5200) to co
re GSR routers that quickly became vital to Internet service providers and by 19
98 gave Cisco de facto monopoly in this critical segment.
In late March 2000, at the height of the dot-com bubble, Cisco became the most v
aluable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than US$500 b
illion.[15][16] In July 2014, with a market cap of about US$129 billion,[17] it
is still one of the most valuable companies.[18]
Meanwhile, the growth of Internet bandwidth requirements kept challenging tradit
ional, software-based packet processing architectures.
The perceived complexity of programming routing functions in silicon, led to for
mation of several startups determined to find new ways to process IP and MPLS pa
ckets entirely in hardware and blur boundaries between routing and switching. On
e of them, Juniper Networks, shipped their first product in 1999 and by 2000 chi
pped away about 30% from Cisco SP Market share. Cisco answered the challenge wit
h homegrown ASICs and fast processing cards for GSR routers and Catalyst 6500 sw
itches. In 2004, Cisco also started migration to new high-end hardware CRS-1 and
software architecture IOS-XR.
2006 2012: The Human Network
As part of a massive rebranding campaign in 2006, Cisco Systems adopted the shor
tened name "Cisco" and created "The Human Network" advertising campaign.[19] The
se efforts were meant to make Cisco a "household" brand a strategy designed to sup
port the low-end Linksys products and future consumer products (such as Flip Vid
eo camera acquired by Cisco in 2009).
On the more traditional business side, Cisco continued to develop its extensive
enterprise-focused routing, switching and security portfolio. The quickly growin
g importance of Ethernet also influenced the company's product lines, prompting
the company to morph the successful Catalyst 6500 Ethernet switch into all-purpo
se Cisco 7600 routing platform.[20] However, limits of IOS and aging Crescendo a

rchitecture also forced Cisco to look at merchant silicon in the carrier Etherne
t segment. This resulted in a new ASR9000 product family intended to consolidate
company's carrier ethernet and subscriber management business around EZChip-bas
ed hardware and IOS-XR. Cisco also expanded into new markets by acquisition one ex
ample being a 2009 purchase of mobile specialist Starent Networks that resulted
in ASR5000 product line.
A Cisco facility in Chennai, India. India is one of the company's largest overse
as markets and production centers.
Throughout the mid-2000s, Cisco also built a significant presence in India, esta
blishing its Globalization Centre East in Bengaluru for $1 billion, and planning
that 20% of Cisco's leaders would be based there.[21]
However, Cisco continued to be challenged by both domestic Alcatel-Lucent, Junip
er Networks and overseas competitors Huawei. Due to lower-than-expected profit i
n 2011, Cisco was forced to reduce annual expenses by $1 billion. The company cu
t around 3,000 employees with an early-retirement program who accepted buyout an
d planned to eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs (around 14 percent of the 73,400 t
otal employees before curtailment).[22][23] During the 2011 analyst call, Cisco'
s CEO John Chambers called out several competitors by name,[24] including Junipe
r and HP.
On 24 July 2012, Cisco received approval from the EU to acquire NDS (a TV softwa
re developer) for USD 5 billion.[25] This acquisition signaled the end of the "T
he Human Network" strategy as Cisco found itself backing off from household hard
ware like Linksys[26] and Flip into the cloud and software market.
2013 Present: The Internet of Everything
Cisco launches a global rebranding campaign for the first time in six years with
its "TOMORROW starts here" and "Internet of Everything" advertising campaigns.
These efforts were designed to position Cisco for the next ten years into a glob
al leader in connecting the previously unconnected and facilitate the IP address
connectivity of people, data, processes and things through cloud computing appl
ications and services.
On July 23, 2013, Cisco Systems announced a definitive agreement to acquire Sour
cefire for $2.7 billion.[27]
On August 14, 2013, Cisco Systems announced it is going to cut 4,000 jobs, which
is roughly 6% of the company, starting in 2014.[28]
Cisco is opening an Internet of Everything research centre in Toronto, Ontario.
In April, 2014, Cisco Systems announced $150 Million to fund early-stage firms a
round the globe to focus on the Internet of Everything. The investment fund was
allocated to investments in IoT accelerators and startups such as The Alchemist
Accelerator, Ayla Networks and EVRYTHNG. After the announcement, The Alchemist A
ccelerator announced Cisco as a strategic partner and launched an individual pro
gram specifically focused on advancing the growth of IoT startups. This new fund
ing increased Cisco Investments' thematic investing to $250 million total, addin
g to the previously announced $100 million commitment to startups focused on the
emerging Internet of Everything (IoE) market opportunity.
At the end of 2013, Cisco announced poor revenue due to depressed sales in emerg
ing markets, caused by economic uncertainty and by fears of the National Securit
y Agency planting backdoors in its products.[29]
On August 13, 2014, the company announced it was laying off another 6,000 worker
s or 8% of its global workforce, as part of a second restructuring.[30]
Media and awards

Cisco products, most notably IP phones and Telepresence, are frequently sighted
in movies and TV series.[31] The company itself and its history was featured in
the documentary film Something Ventured which premiered in 2011.
Cisco was a 2002 03 recipient of the Ron Brown Award,[32][33] a U.S. presidential
honor to recognize companies "for the exemplary quality of their relationships w
ith employees and communities". Cisco commonly stays on top of Fortune "100 Best
Companies to work for", with position No. 20 in 2011.[34]
Acquisitions
Main article: List of acquisitions by Cisco Systems
Cisco acquired a variety of companies to spin products and talent into the compa
ny. In 1995 1996 the company completed 11 acquisitions.[35] Several acquisitions,
such as Stratacom, were the biggest deals in the industry when they occurred.[36
] During the Internet boom in 1999, the company acquired Cerent Corporation, a s
tart-up company located in Petaluma, California, for about US$7 billion.[37] It
was the most expensive acquisition made by Cisco to that date, and only the acqu
isition of Scientific Atlanta has been larger.[38] In 1999 Cisco also acquired s
take for $1 Billion in KPMG Consulting to enable establishing Internet firm Metr
ius founded by Keyur Patel of Fuse.[39] Several acquired companies have grown in
to $1Bn+ business units for Cisco, including LAN switching, Enterprise Voice ove
r Internet Protocol (VOIP) platform Webex, and home networking. The latter came
as result of Cisco acquiring Linksys in 2003 and in 2010 was supplemented with n
ew product line dubbed Cisco Valet.
Cisco announced on January 4, 2007 that it would buy IronPort in a deal valued a
t US$830 million[40][41] and completed the acquisition on June 25, 2007.[42] Iro
nPort was best known for its IronPort AntiSpam, its SenderBase email reputation
service, and its email security appliances. Accordingly, IronPort was integrated
into the Cisco Security business unit.[43] Ironport's Senderbase was renamed as
Sensorbase to take account of the input into this database that other Cisco dev
ices provide. SensorBase allows these devices to build a risk profile on IP addr
esses, therefore allowing risk profiles to be dynamically created on http sites
and SMTP email sources.[44]
Cisco announced on March 15, 2012 that it would acquire NDS Group for $5B.[45][4
6] The transaction was completed on July 30, 2012.[47][4]
In more recent merger deals, Cisco bought Starent Networks (a mobile packet core
company) and Moto Development Group, a product design consulting firm that help
ed develop Cisco's Flip video camera.[48][49] Also in 2010, Cisco became a key s
takeholder in e-Skills Week. In March 2011, Cisco completed the acquisition of p
rivately held network configuration and change management software company Pari
Networks.[50]
Although many buy-ins (such as Crescendo Networks in 1993, Tandberg in 2010) res
ulted in acquisition of flagship technology to Cisco, many others have failed part
ially or completely.[51] For instance, in 2010 Cisco occupied a meaningful share
of the packet-optical market,[52] revenues were still not on par with US$7 bill
ion price tag paid in 1999 for Cerent. Some of acquired technologies (such as Fl
ip from Pure Digital) saw their product lines terminated.[53][54]
In January 2013, Cisco Systems acquired Israeli software maker Intucell for arou
nd $475 million in cash, a move to expand its mobile network management offering
s.[55][56] In the same month, Cisco Systems acquired Cognitive Security, a compa
ny focused on Cyber Threat Protection. Cisco also acquired SolveDirect (cloud se
rvices) in March 2013[57] and Ubiquisys (mobile software) in April 2013.
Cisco acquired cyber-security firm Sourcefire, in October 2013.[58]

On June 16, 2014, Cisco announced that it has completed the acquisition of threa
tGRID, a company that provided dynamic malware analysis and threat intelligence
technology.[59]
On June 17, 2014, Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately held Tail-f Sy
stems, a leader in multi-vendor network service orchestration solutions for trad
itional and virtualized networks.[60]
Products and services
This section appears to contain a large number of buzzwords. Specific co
ncerns may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this section if you ca
n. (August 2012)
Cisco's products and services focus upon three market segments Enterprise and Serv
ice Provider, Small Business and the Home.
Corporate market
Corporate market refers to enterprise networking and service providers.
Borderless networks
[61] for their range of routers, switches, wireless systems, security system
s, WAN acceleration, energy and building management systems and media aware netw
orks.[62]
Collaboration
IP video and phones, TelePresence, HealthPresence, Unified Communications, C
all Center systems, Enterprise social networks and Mobile applications[63]
Datacenter and Virtualization
Unified Computing, Unified Fabric, Data Centre Switching, Storage Networking
and Cloud Computing services.[64]
IP NGN (Next Generation Networks)
High-end routing and switching for fixed and mobile service provider network
s, broadcast video contribution/distribution, entitlement and content delivery s
ystems.[65]
Small businesses
Cisco small business SG300-28 28-port Gigabit Ethernet rackmount switch and its
internals
Small businesses include home businesses and (usually technology-based) startups
.[66]
Routers and switches
The machines that route and redirect packets across a network, including tho
se for networks of smart meters.[67]
Security and surveillance
IP cameras, data and network security etc.[68]
Voice and conferencing
VOIP phones and gateway-systems, WebEx, video conferencing
Wireless
WiFi Access points
Network storage systems
Persistent people storage on networks, either in the traditional sense or in
a cloud-like manner.
Home user
Home user refers to individuals or families who require these kinds of services.
[69]
Broadband

Broadband refers to cable modems.

Flip Video
With the acquisition of Pure Digital Technologies, Cisco began to sell a lin
e of video recording devices called "Flip Video" that had been Pure Digital's on
ly line of products. This line of products was not as popular as Cisco had thoug
ht it would have been, and on April 12, 2011, Cisco announced they were disconti
nuing all Flip camera production.[70][71] Cisco umi product line video conferencin
g for home also proved to be a short-lived bid for consumer multimedia market an
d did survive in Cisco product lineup.[72]
Hardware
A Cisco ASM/2-32EM router deployed at CERN in 1987
A Cisco 7960G IP Phone
Cisco UCS blade servers
Data
Datacenter products: Nexus Switches (1000v, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000,700
0, 9000), MDS, Unified Computing System (UCS)
Routers, including: 800 Series, Integrated Services Router (ISR) (1800, 2800
, 3800), ISR G2 (1900, 2900, 3900), 2500 Series, 7200, 7600, 12000, ASR (900, 10
00, 9000), Network Convergence System (NCS) 6000, and Carrier Routing System (CR
S-1, CRS-3, CRS-X)
Security appliances: ASA 5500, PIX 500 series, Cisco Security Manager, Email
Security Appliance (ESA), Web Security Appliance (WSA), Content Security Manage
ment Appliance (SMA)
Catalyst switches: 1900 Series, 2900 / 2950 / 2960 / 3500XL Series, 3550 / 3
750 Series, 3000 Series, Catalyst 4500/4900, 5000/5500 Series, 6500 Series, 6800
Series
Teleworker/Remote Connectivity Cisco LAN2LAN Personal Office for ISDN, VPN 300
0 Concentrators
Cisco Wireless LAN products Access Points, PCI/PCMCIA/USB Wireless LAN Adaptor
s, Wireless LAN Controllers (WLC), Wireless LAN Solutions Engines (WLSE), Wirele
ss Control System (WCS), Location Appliances, Long range antennas.
Telephony Products
Collaboration Systems Cisco TelePresence, (Cisco Manufacturing Mobile Video Co
llaboration with Librestream, Cisco acquired Tandberg, the world leader in Telep
resence systems)[73]
IP Telephony (VoIP) Servers and Appliances
Cisco Unified IP Phones Wireless IP Phone 7920, 7945, 7965, 7942, 8900 series,
9900 series, 6900 series
Servers / Application Appliances
Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS)
Unified Computing: Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) virtual server platf
orm
Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE): Application Delivery Controller (now
discontinued)
Experimental
CLEO (Cisco Low Earth Orbit router)
IRIS (Cisco Internet Routing in Space)
Other Products
Cisco Cius: a new Android-based collaboration tablet (now discontinued)

Set Top Boxes (High Definition PVRs) Cable/IP

Flip pocket camera (Discontinued in April 2011)[74]
Software
Operating Systems
Internetwork Operating System (IOS)
CatOS Catalyst Switch Operating System
NX-OS Nexus Operating System
IOS-XR
VPN/Remote Connectivity
Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
Cisco Systems VPN Client
Clean Access Agent, Cisco NAC Appliance
Telephony/VoIP
Cisco Call Manager / Call Manager Express
Cisco Unified Communications Manager
Cisco Unified Operations Manager (CUOM) is a NMS for voice. It features real-t
ime monitoring of all system elements, and performs automatic discovery for the
entire system and provides contextual diagnostics for troubleshooting.
Cisco IP Communicator is a VoIP softphone software application. It can regis
ter with a Cisco Unified Communications Manager or Cisco Unified Communications
Manager Express using either SIP or Cisco's proprietary Skinny Client Control Pr
otocol.
WebEx Collaboration Tools
Other
Cisco Active Network Abstraction
Cisco Fabric Manager
Data Center Management and Automation Cisco Intelligent Automation
Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler
CiscoView
CiscoWorks Network Management software
Cisco Eos
Packet Tracer, didactic network simulator
Cisco Network Magic Pro
Cisco Quad
Cisco Security Manager
Cisco SDM
PostOffice protocol (not to be confused with POP3, SMTP, or other mail deliv
ery protocols). It is a Cisco proprietary protocol that runs over UDP on port 45
000.[75] It provides a communications vehicle between the sensors and the Direct
or platform.
VoIP services
Cisco became a major provider of Voice over IP to enterprises, and is now moving
into the home user market through its acquisitions of Scientific Atlanta and Li
nksys. Scientific Atlanta provides VoIP equipment to cable service providers suc
h as Time Warner, Cablevision, Rogers Communications, UPC, and others; Linksys h
as partnered with companies such as Skype, Microsoft and Yahoo! to integrate con
sumer VoIP services with wireless and cordless phones.
Hosted Collaboration Solution

Cisco partners can offer cloud-based services based on Cisco's virtualized Unifi
ed Computing System (UCS). A part of the Cisco Unified Services Delivery Solutio
n that will[when?] include hosted versions of Cisco Unified Communications Manag
er (UCM), Cisco Unified Contact Center, Cisco Unified Mobility, Cisco Unified Pr
esence, Cisco Unity Connection (unified messaging), and Cisco Webex Meeting Cent
er.[76]
Network Emergency Response
The company maintains several Network Emergency Response Vehicles (NERV)s. The v
ehicles are maintained and deployed by Cisco employees during natural disasters
and other public crises. The vehicles are self-contained and provide wired and w
ireless services including voice, and radio interoperability, voice over IP, net
work based video surveillance and secured high definition video conferencing for
leaders and first responders in crisis areas with up to 3 Mbit/s of bandwidth (
up and down) via a 1.8-meter satellite antenna.[77]
NERVs are based at Cisco headquarters sites in San Jose, California and Research
Triangle Park, North Carolina allowing strategic deployment in North America an
d are capable of being fully operational within 15 minutes of arrival. [57][58]
High capacity diesel fuel tanks allow the largest vehicles to run for up to 72 h
ours continuously.[78] The NERV has been deployed to incidents such as the Octob
er 2007 California wildfires; hurricanes Gustav, Ike, and Katrina; the 2010 San
Bruno gas pipeline explosion, tornado outbreaks in North Carolina and Alabama in
2011; and Hurricane Sandy in 2012.[79][80]
The team maintains and deploys smaller more portable communication kits which ar
e deployed to emergencies outside of North America. In 2010, the team deployed t
o assist in earthquake recover in Haiti and Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2011,
they deployed to flooding in Brazil, as well as the tsunami in Japan.[81]
In 2011, Cisco received the Innovation Preparedness award from the American Red
Cross, Silicon Valley Chapter for its development and use of these vehicles in d
isasters.[82]
Cisco Career Certifications
Main article: Cisco Career Certifications
Cisco Systems also sponsors a line of IT Professional certifications for Cisco p
roducts.[83] There are five levels of certification: Entry (CCENT), Associate (C
CNA / CCDA), Professional (CCNP / CCDP), Expert (CCIE / CCDE), and recently Arch
itect, as well as eight different paths, Routing & Switching, Design, Network Se
curity, Service Provider, Service Provider Operations, Storage Networking, Voice
, Datacenter and Wireless.
A number of specialist technician, sales and datacenter certifications are also
available.
Cisco also provides training for these certifications via a portal called the Ci
sco Networking Academy. Qualifying schools can become members of the Cisco Netwo
rking Academy and then provide CCNA level or other level courses. Cisco Academy
Instructors must be CCNA certified to be a CCAI certified instructor.
Cisco often finds itself involved with technical education. With over 10,000 par
tnerships in over 65 countries[84] Cisco Academy program operates in many exotic
locations. For example, in March 2013, Cisco announced its interest in Myanmar
by investing in two Cisco Networking Academies in Yangon and Mandalay and a chan
nel partner network.[85]
Criticisms and controversy
Shareholder relations
A class action lawsuit filed on April 20, 2001 accused Cisco of making misleadin

g statements that "were relied on by purchasers of Cisco stock" and of insider t

rading.[86] While Cisco denied all allegations in the suit, on August 18, 2006,
Cisco's liability insurers, its directors, and officers paid the plaintiffs US$9
1.75 million to settle the suit.[87]
Intellectual property disputes
On December 11, 2008, the Free Software Foundation filed suit against Cisco rega
rding Cisco's failure to comply with the GPL and LGPL license models and make th
e applicable source code publicly available.[88] On May 20, 2009, Cisco settled
this lawsuit by complying with FSF licensing terms and making a monetary contrib
ution to the FSF.[89]
Censorship in China
Cisco has been criticized for its involvement in censorship in the People's Repu
blic of China.[90] According to author Ethan Gutmann, Cisco and other telecommun
ications equipment providers supplied the Chinese government with surveillance a
nd Internet infrastructure equipment that is used to block Internet websites and
track online activities in China.[91] Cisco says that it does not customize or
develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities to enable governments to bl
ock access to information and that it sells the same equipment in China as it se
lls worldwide.[92]
Wired News had uncovered a leaked, confidential Cisco power point presentation t
hat details the commercial opportunities of the Golden Shield Project of Interne
t control.[93] In her article, journalist Sarah Stirland accuses Cisco of market
ing its technology "specifically as a tool of repression."
Tax fraud investigation
On October 16, 2007, the Brazilian Federal Police and Brazilian Receita Federal
(equivalent to the American IRS), under the "Persona Operation", uncovered an al
leged tax fraud scheme employed by Cisco Systems Brazil Chief Carlos Roberto Car
nevali since 2002 that exempted the company from paying over R$1.5 billion (US$8
24 million) in taxes.[94][95]
Antitrust lawsuit
On December 1, 2008, Multiven filed an antitrust lawsuit[96][97][98][99][100][10
1] against Cisco Systems, Inc. in an effort to open up the network maintenance s
ervices marketplace for Cisco equipment, promote competition and ensure consumer
choice and value. Multiven's complaint alleges that Cisco harmed Multiven and c
onsumers by bundling and tying bug fixes/patches and updates for its operating s
ystem software to its maintenance services (SMARTnet) and through a series of ot
her illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain Cisco's a
lleged monopoly in the network maintenance services market for Cisco networking
equipment. Cisco responded by accusing the person who filed the anti-trust suit,
British-born Peter Alfred-Adekeye, with hacking and pressured the US government
to extradite him from Canada, where he was giving evidence against Cisco in an
anti-trust hearing. Canadian Judge Ronald McKinnon, who oversaw the extradition
hearing, stated the real reason for the extradition proceedings was because Alfr
ed-Adekeye "dared to take on a multinational giant." He also condemned the US pr
osecutor for hiding the fact that Alfred-Adekeye was in legal proceedings agains
t Cisco Systems, for stating that Alfred-Adekeye had left the USA in a time peri
od when he had not and a formal request for extradition was not filed against Al
fred-Adekeye when he was taken into custody. Judge McKinnon described the inform
ation provided by Cisco and the US prosecutor as "full of innuendo, half-truths
and falsehoods," adding that "This speaks volumes for Cisco's duplicity" and acc
used them of "unmitigated gall" in using such a heavy-handed move as an unsuppor
table arrest and jailing to pressure Alfred-Adekeye to drop or settle his civil
antitrust complaint.[102]
Remotely monitoring users' connections

Cisco's Linksys E2700, E3500, E4500 devices have been reported to be remotely up
dated to a firmware version that allows Cisco to monitor their network use.[103]
[104]
Firewall backdoor developed by NSA
According to the German magazine Der Spiegel the NSA has developed JETPLOW for g
aining access to ASA (series 5505, 5510, 5520, 5540 and 5550) and 500-series PIX
Firewalls.[105]
Cisco s Chief Security Officer addressed the allegations publicly and denied worki
ng with any government to weaken Cisco products for exploitation or to implement
security back doors.[106]
A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with
Glenn Greenwald s book No Place to Hide details how the agency s Tailored Access Op
erations (TAO) unit and other NSA employees intercept servers, routers, and othe
r network gear being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and inst
all covert firmware onto them before they re delivered. These Trojan horse systems
were described by an NSA manager as being some of the most productive operations
in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around
the world. [107]
Cisco addressed the allegations in a customer document [108] concluding that no
information was included about specific Cisco products, supply chain interventio
n or implant techniques, or new security vulnerabilities. Cisco s General Counsel
also reconfirmed that Cisco does not work with any government, including the Uni
ted States Government, to weaken its products.[109] The allegations are reported
to have prompted the company s CEO to express concern to the President of the Uni
ted States.[110]
Spherix Patent Suit
March 2014 Cisco Systems is being sued for patent infringement. Spherix asserts
that over $43 billion of Cisco's sales infringe on old Nortel patents owned by S
pherix. Officials with Spherix are claiming that a wide range of Cisco products,
from switches to routers, infringe on 11 former Nortel patents that the company
now owns.[111]