Finnish researches today announced a high-risk vulnerability in a security protocol that serves an important role in key exchanges in IPsec VPNs. The severity of the flaw depends on different vendors, some of whom report it exists in their products and others who for now maintain their offerings are unaffected. But its impact could be great, given those vendors include heavyweights Cisco Systems, 3Com, Juniper Networks, Microsoft and IBM.

At issue is the handling of an international standard known as Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP), published by the Internet Engineering Task Force to establish, negotiate, modify and delete security associations. ISAKMP is a derivative of IKE and provides a framework for transferring key and authentication data that's independent of authentication, encryption algorithm or any key-generation technique, according to an advisory issued by CERT-FI and the United Kingdom's National Infrastructure Security Coordination Center.

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