Zurich based IT services company Multiven has accused Cisco of stealing thousands of files repeatedly from 2008 to 2012.
Multiven owner Alfred Adekeye, a former employee at Cisco, continued with new espionage claims against his former company.
Multiven, which has already filed complaints with the US Department of Justice and the Swiss Cybercrime Coordination Unit, says it is seeking a public apology from Cisco by March 29 and failure to do so will result in them filing a civil suit.
Among the claims is that Cisco stole thousands of its proprietary and copyrighted data files from its knowledge base, mysolvr.com, as well as unlawful access that “put undue load on Multiven’s server resulting in a degraded service for its legitimate users and customers”.
Among evidence that Multiven says it has includes an internal investigation which pointed to a Cisco assigned IP address after files were stolen using “automated cyber scrapping software.”
“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,” Multiven claimed.
“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,” the company concluded.
Just last year Multiven claimed bundling of network maintenance plans by Cisco amounted to abuse of monopoly.
Cisco has so far denied the claims saying that “the only access that Cisco has ever had to Multiven content is through its website, which is readily available to the general public”.
“Further, it’s important to note that Multiven’s CEO is currently under federal indictment in the US for behavior – including stealing Cisco software in violation of the federal Anti-Hacking Statute – similar to their own accusations,” Cisco said in a statement.
