With the advent of artificial intelligence, Cisco is sounding an urgent alarm about the dangers of advancing technology

Aging digital infrastructure Equipment such as Routers, Network switchesNetwork-attached storage has long been a silent threat to organizations. In the short term, it will be cheaper and easier to leave these boxes open in a forgotten cupboard. But this infrastructure may have outdated and insecure configurations, and legacy technology is often no longer supported by vendors for software patches and other protections. like Generative AI platforms Make it easier for attackers finds and exploited Because security vulnerabilities exist in target systems, networking technology company Cisco is launching an effort to raise awareness about the issue and promote improvements, both for legacy Cisco devices and other companies’ products still in use.

It’s called “resilient infrastructure.” initiative It includes research and industry outreach as well as technical shifts in how Cisco manages its legacy products. The company says it’s issuing new warnings for its end-of-life products, so if customers are running or trying to add known unsafe configurations, they’ll receive a clear, upfront prompt when they update the device. Eventually, Cisco will go a step further to remove historical settings and interoperability options that are no longer considered fully secure.

“Infrastructure globally is outdated, which creates a significant amount of risk,” says Anthony Greco, chief security and trust officer at Cisco. “The thing we have to make clear is that this legacy infrastructure was not designed for today’s threat environments. By not modernizing it, it enhances opportunities for adversaries.”

Research by British consulting firm Cisco, WPI Strategy, looked at the reach and impact of end-of-life technology on “critical national infrastructure” in five countries: the US, the UK, Germany, France and Japan. the He studies It finds that the UK (closely followed by the US) faces the greatest relative group risk from widespread use of old, outdated technology in key sectors. Japan had the lowest relative risk – the report says, thanks to a greater focus on continuous upgrades, decentralization of critical infrastructure, and a “stronger and more consistent national focus on digital resilience”.

Overall, the research also underscores that breaches and other cybersecurity incidents around the world regularly involve attackers exploiting known vulnerabilities that could be avoided by patching or upgrading out-of-date technology.

“The status quo is not free,” says Eric Wenger, senior director of technology policy at Cisco. “There is a cost, but it is not being taken into account.” “If we can help elevate these risks to something that is treated as a concern at board level, we hope that will help underscore the importance of investing here.” As an industry, “we don’t make it hard enough for attackers,” he adds.