Multiven Pursues Civil Action Against Cisco Systems for Theft of Thousands of its Proprietary and Copyrighted Data

ZURICH, Switzerland, April 8, 2013 - Multiven, the leading provider of cloud-based management and maintenance services for all IP networks, today announces that it will be seeking civil redress following Cisco Systems, Inc’s (“Cisco”) failure to issue a public apology for the cyber-theft of thousands of proprietary and copyrighted data files from Multiven’s knowledge base, mysolvr.com.

On March 12, 2013, Multiven gave Cisco the opportunity to avoid a civil redress if it issued a public apology on or before 5pm PT on March 29, 2013. Responding to Multiven’s initial complaint Cisco stated that “…this is yet another false accusation from Multiven, and we strongly reject this claim…”. Yet less than an hour before the expiration of this ultimatum, Cisco admitted in writing to Multiven that it had indeed used web-scraping as a means to unlawfully access, without authorisation, thousands of Multiven proprietary and copyrighted files.

Cisco however refused to apologise, claiming that it resorted to this theft as part of its ‘discovery’ during Multiven’s federal antitrust lawsuit against it (“Multiven v.Cisco”).

“There are clear legal guidelines to discovery in litigation and Cisco resorting to stealing all the proprietary data in Multiven’s knowledge-base while causing denial-of-service on multiple occasions, is not one of them.” stated Peter Alfred-Adekeye, Multiven CEO.

Multiven has since forwarded Cisco’s admission of guilt to US (Department of Justice via the San Francisco office of the US Secret Service) and Swiss (Cybercrime Coordination Unit) law enforcement authorities.

About Multiven

Multiven is the leading provider of cloud-based management and maintenance services for all IP networks. By offering service-as-a-utility, powered by its cloud-based global workforce of elite network experts, while leading consumer advocacy that ensures customer choice and value, Multiven is realizing its mission of making the Internet network globally available, reliable and affordable. For more information about Multiven, please visit www.multiven.com.

Multiven reports the Cyber-theft of thousands of its Proprietary Data by Cisco Systems, Inc. to Law Enforcement

“Startups need to be supported by the law to freely and fairly compete without threats from monopolistic organizations that are determined to steal and stifle their innovation.”

Peter Alfred-Adekeye

Zurich, Switzerland, March 12, 2013 - Multiven today announces that it has filed a complaint against Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”) with US (Department of Justice) and Swiss (Cybercrime Coordination Unit) law enforcement authorities for the theft of thousands of its proprietary and copyrighted data files from its knowledge base, mysolvr.com. These unauthorised access by Cisco to Multiven’s knowledge-base, which put undue load on Multiven’s server resulting in a degraded service for its legitimate users and customers, are clear violations of the US federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. §1030 and the Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (§502 of the California Penal Code).  

On at least four separate occasions between December 2009 and January 2010, Cisco stole thousands of proprietary and copyrighted data from Multiven’s knowledge-base using automated cyber scraping software. Multiven’s subsequent investigation revealed that the theft involved over 53,000 ‘requests’ that originated from three Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses assigned to Cisco Systems, Inc., headquartered in San José, California.

Once the first attack was identified and blocked by Multiven’s cyber security team, the firewall continued to log packets coming from the blocked IP address. In addition, the log files show that another two IP addresses assigned to Cisco Systems, Inc. then began to attack Multiven’s data with a view to capturing all its proprietary files.

At the time, Multiven.com, Pingsta.com and mysolvr.com were hosted on the same physical server.

Multiven has found no evidence that customer or user passwords were included in the data stolen by Cisco Systems, Inc.

Peter Alfred-Adekeye, CEO, Multiven stated, “Based on the fact that the source IP addresses of these systematic and premeditated theft of Multiven’s intellectual property by Cisco Systems originated from Cisco’s headquarters in San Jose, California, it is clear that Cisco CEO John T. Chambers and General Counsel Mark Chandler or people under their control instigated these thefts. Per standard operating procedure, we have reported these breaches to law enforcement but we will refrain from seeking a civil redress if Cisco issues a public apology immediately and the assurance that none of the stolen data has been used for its advantage and it has now all been deleted. Start-ups and young enterprises are key to turning around the current global economic downturn. However, for them to succeed, the law must protect their intellectual property from monopolistic organizations that abuse their dominant positions to stifle competition, innovation and consumer choice for their selfish gain”.

Despite the fact that Multiven was severely harmed by these thefts that could enable Cisco Systems, Inc. to effectively replicate Multiven’s entire knowledge base - a key component of Multiven’s intellectual property, trade secret and livelihood with a value in the billions of Dollars - Multiven is willing to refrain from pursuing a civil redress of this matter if Cisco Systems, Inc.;

Issues a public apology on or before 17.00 Pacific Time on March 29, 2013
Confirms in writing via the public apology to Multiven that it has not, and will not, use any of the stolen data in its current nor future products and services
Confirms in writing via the public apology to Multiven that it has permanently deleted all online and offline copies of all stolen Multiven proprietary and copyrighted data in its possession