11/7/2005 -- Reports are emerging across the Web that former security researcher Michael Lynn has been hired by Cisco Systems rival Juniper Networks. The news comes three months after Lynn exposed a security flaw in Cisco’s IOS operating system at a Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

Lynn had quit working for his former employer Internet Security Systems (ISS) to give a presentation on the vulnerability at the security confab, despite protests from ISS and Cisco. Following the talk, he did, however, agree with the two companies to surrender all research materials he had related to the vulnerability and to never discuss his findings again.

Cisco issued a patch Wednesday for the flaw Lynn discovered.

Though a Juniper spokesman confirmed Lynn’s employment with the network equipment maker, he declined to provide details about Lynn’s job role or responsibilities, or how long Lynn had been employed with the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, according to eWeek. -Dan Hong