Buying Used Equipment

examseeker

Friday, two Cisco reps came to work to talk about our equipment. My boss 'showed' them my CCNA Security book and I showed them my CCNA cert.

Anyway, somehow we talked about home labs and one of the reps said not to buy used equipment (such as from ebay). Her husband is in Canada right now fixing a problem there. Apparently, people put malicious code in the routers and switches that is very difficult to find. Also clearing the flash is not enough.

Has anyone else heard about this?

Thanks,
es

msteinhilber

I've made numerous purchases for various Cisco gear on ebay and haven't had any issues as I'm sure many others have. I haven't heard of any instance of malicious code in a router/switch that clearing the flash is not enough, but I'm not as immersed into Cisco as others are. One thing that I have read about as a problem previously has been fake Cisco gear being sold on ebay, I would suspect that would be a more likely issue to possibly run into.

examseeker

Well, that does make me feel better. Can't wait to start building a home lab.. gotta save up money for Christmas and such and go from there..

examseeker

Does ciscokits.com sell used or new equipment?

tiersten

It is FUD by the sales reps to make you buy more things from them. They're talking absolute crap. The most you have to worry about is fake gear like msteinhilber said.

It is possible to change the ROMMON on a router/switch to do something potentially malicious but it just isn't worth the effort. You can do plenty of other easier and quicker things if you want to piss people off or cause havoc.