Network security appliances like firewalls are meant to keep hackers out. Instead, digital intruders are increasingly targeting them as the weak link that lets them pillage the very systems those devices are meant to protect. In the case of one hacking campaign over recent months, Cisco is now revealing that its firewalls served as beachheads for sophisticated hackers penetrating multiple government networks around the world. On Wednesday, Cisco warned that its so-called Adaptive Security Appliances'devices that integrate a firewall and VPN with other security features'had been targeted by state-sponsored spies who exploited two zero-day vulnerabilities in the networking giant's gear to compromise government targets globally in a hacking campaign it's calling ArcaneDoor. The hackers behind the intrusions, which Cisco's security division Talos is calling UAT4356 and which Microsoft researchers who contributed to the investigation have named STORM-1849, couldn't be clearly tied to any...
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