3/30/2004 -- On Saturday, Cisco issued a security advisory to customers based on the recent public posting of code that "exploits multiple previous vulnerabilities in various Cisco products," the company said. Many of these exploits date back several years.

According to news reports, the code was published by a group of Italian teenagers who call themselves the BlackAngels. The group's Web site shows that the code, which they call the Cisco Global Exploiter, was published on March 23.

Cisco is urging customers to "take steps to ensure that they have addressed each of these either via a software upgrade or workarounds in place as appropriate in order to mitigate any risk from this new exploit code."

A full list of the recommended patches and workarounds is available in the advisory, posted here. -Becky Nagel