Juniper routers exposed to attack

Networking company Juniper Networks is encouraging customers to upgrade their routers to fix a serious vulnerability in its operating system.

My the Juniper T-series routers are affected by the flaw in the version 6 series of Juno, which makes them vulnerable to denial of service attacks. Such an attack could allow an attacker to gain access to the router and crucial areas of a company network.

Juniper confirmed the existence of security hole in Junos on Monday.

“It is fixed, that our customers are upgrading, but I can not give more details,” Penny said, however, a spokesman for Juniper.

According to security firm Secunia Research has vulnerability “moderately critical” implications for networks. In a notice posted on its website, the Danish company said the flaw was in an unspecified error in processing certain network packets. It recommends that companies upgrade the operating systems on their routers.

The vulnerability is thought to affect routers running versions of yuzu installed before January 07 this year. It was discovered by U.S. Qwest Communications.

The warning comes after Cisco Systems Juniper sent two notices of security holes in its router software. On 21 January, the networking giant posted a warning on its Web site to say routers connected to its IP telephony equipment could be vulnerable to denial of service attacks. Then last week, Cisco announced it had found three security flaws in its routing software that could open the door to the same kind of intruder.