Flaws in equipment from four companies, including Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc., could potentially expose corporate computers to hacker attacks, government security experts said Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, US-CERT, made the warning on its Web site. It said the flaw was reported to the companies on Sept. 24 but a remedy hasn’t been developed as yet.

In addition to San Jose-based Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and Sunnyvale-based Juniper (NASDAQ:JNPR), the government said the flaw exists in network equipment from San Jose-based SonicWall Inc. (NASDAQ:SNWL) and Belcamp, Md.-based SafeNet Inc.

The flaw involves equipment companies use to access computer systems over the Internet that use a technology known as SSL VPN. It involves systems that run through the Web rather than using software on a user’s PC.

US-CERT said it has worked out ways to minimize but not erase the risks.

A Juniper spokesman told Reuters that his company had known of the vulnerability for several years and workarounds reduce the risks to the point that customers don’t need to worry about them.

A SafeNet spokeswoman told Reuters that her company had a way to completely eliminate the risk and has told customers how to fix the problem.

[source: bizjournals.com]