Juniper Networks finds backdoor code in its firewalls

One of the reasons corporate users and the privacy-minded rely on VPNs is to control access to their networks and (hopefully) not expose secrets over insecure connections. Today Juniper Networks revealed that some of its products may not have been living up to that standard, after discovering "unauthorized code" in the software that runs on its NetScreen firewalls during a code review. Pointed out by security researcher "The Grugq," the backdoor has been present since late 2012 and can only be fixed by upgrading to a new version of software just released today.

The pair of issues that created the backdoor would allow anyone who knows about it to remotely log in to the firewall as an administrator, decrypt and spy on supposedly secure traffic, and then remove any trace of their activity. Obviously this is a Very Bad Thing, although Juniper claims it has not heard of any exploitation in the wild (which would be difficult, since no one knew it existed and attackers could hide their traces) so far.

Beyond sending IT people sprinting to patch and test their setups, now we can all speculate about which friendly group of state-sponsored attackers is responsible. US government officials have recently been pushing for mandated backdoor access to secure networks and services, but the Edward Snowden saga made clear that even our own country's personnel aren't always going to ask permission before snooping on any information they want to check out. I contacted Juniper Networks regarding the issue, but have not received a response at this time.

Update: A Juniper Networks spokesperson told us:

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