Cisco Systems

On January 21, 2026, Cisco disclosed a critical code injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-20045, CVSS 8.2) affecting Unified Communications Manager, Webex Calling, and related products that was actively exploited as a zero-day before a patch was available. The vulnerability allowed attackers to send crafted HTTP requests to obtain user-level access to the underlying operating system and escalate privileges to root. Cisco's PSIRT was aware of attempted exploitation in the wild. The U.S. CISA added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and gave federal agencies until February 11, 2026 to deploy updates. The zero-day status indicates attackers discovered the vulnerability before Cisco's security teams, representing a failure to identify and remediate critical vulnerabilities before exploitation.

In January 2026, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit accusing Cisco of supplying technology used by China to identify, detain, and persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Leaked 2008 marketing materials allegedly showed Cisco touted its products' ability to identify 90%+ of Falun Gong online content. Plaintiffs allege arrest, detention, torture including beatings with steel rods, electric shocks, and forced labor camps.

At Davos in January 2025, CEO Chuck Robbins said Cisco wouldn't be getting rid of its DEI policies because there's 'too much business value.' Despite shareholder challenges from conservative groups demanding ROI analysis, Cisco maintained its commitment to diversity and inclusion. The company has a 78% Workplace Pride rating and was ranked #1 on PEOPLE's 2024 'Companies That Care' list.

Cisco laid off over 9,000 workers in 2024: ~4,000 in February (5%) and another 5,600 in September (7%). Total cost was nearly $2 billion. Employees reported the company refused to say who was affected until September 16, over a month after the August announcement. Meanwhile, CEO Robbins' compensation rose to $38.2 million in 2024, with a 267-to-1 pay ratio.

Cisco topped Great Place to Work's Best Workplaces for Parents list for the fifth consecutive year in 2024. Under CEO Chuck Robbins, Cisco has maintained strong commitments to DEI including supplier diversity programs, internal equity audits, and comprehensive parental leave policies that support work-life balance for all genders.

Cisco is a Platinum member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and a Platinum sponsor of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF). The company is a top contributor to OpenTelemetry and the Kubernetes ecosystem, and launched Foundation AI, an open-source AI initiative for cybersecurity. Cisco's engineers serve in leadership roles across open source governance including as maintainers of key supply chain security projects.

Cisco has been a founding member of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) and participates in the Responsible Minerals Initiative, Responsible Labor Initiative, and Clean Electronics Production Network. The company conducts conflict minerals due diligence with 70% of reported smelters conformant to third-party standards in 2023. Cisco publicly called on global leaders to strengthen laws against forced labor and maintains a 24/7 multi-language ethics reporting hotline for supply chain workers.

Cisco Networking Academy, launched in 1997, has provided free IT and cybersecurity training to over 20 million learners across 190 countries. In October 2022, Cisco announced a goal to train 25 million additional people in digital and cybersecurity skills over 10 years. The program offers courses in networking, cybersecurity, and programming at no cost to eligible educational organizations, available in up to 18 languages. 95% of students taking certification-aligned courses report obtaining a job or education opportunity through the program.

The Cisco Foundation committed US$100 million over 10 years for climate solutions that draw down carbon from the atmosphere and/or regenerate depleted ecosystems. This was part of Cisco's broader environmental sustainability strategy 'Plan for Possible,' launched in fiscal 2023 alongside the appointment of its first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer.

In September 2021, Cisco announced a commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its full value chain (Scopes 1, 2, and 3) by 2040. The commitment was validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. Cisco also set interim targets to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 90% by 2025 from a 2019 baseline and reduce absolute Scope 3 emissions by 30% by 2030.

After Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations that the NSA had been intercepting Cisco networking equipment in transit to implant surveillance backdoors, Cisco took countermeasures by shipping products to seemingly random addresses to throw off interception efforts. CEO John Chambers also wrote to President Obama protesting the NSA's practices. Cisco published a formal human rights position opposing backdoors and stating it does not deliberately build backdoors into its products.

Cisco sold networking equipment used in China's Golden Shield Project (Great Firewall) beginning in the early 2000s. Plaintiffs allege Cisco custom-built surveillance tools that enabled Chinese security services to identify, track, and persecute Falun Gong practitioners. A 2006 Congressional hearing examined Cisco's role alongside Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Cisco maintained it sold standard networking equipment and did not customize products to facilitate censorship or repression.