Networking giant Cisco is currently a work in progress, going through an internal restructuring led by CEO John Chambers.  This road however seems to be a bit bumpy, and an analysis of network scans by Dimension Data for its 2011 Network Barometer Report will definitely not have a positive effect on Cisco’s efforts.  This study discovered that numerous companies currently using Cisco networking gear are exposed to a security vulnerability that should have been fixed two years ago.

“Overall, Dimension’s Technology Lif”ecycle Management (TLM) assessment service discovered that an average of 73 percent of the 270 assessments it carried out on Cisco-dominated global companies had at least one known device security vulnerability that had yet to be patched.”

A single prominent vulnerability, Cisco PSIRT 109444, was the most common security exposure among the companies Dimension Data studied at 66 percent of all cases. PSIRT 10944, a vulnarbilty capable of allowing a successful DDoS attack, was also detected.

A day after news broke of this new security concern, a new Cisco SEC filing caused stock to slide by 0.5 percent to $16.19 at closing. In the filing, the company said it expected fourth quarter revenues to be “relatively flat compared to the prior year period.” This comes two weeks after Cisco said during its earnings call that it expects revenue growth “in the range of flat to up 2% on a year-over-year basis.” Alongside this subtle decline though, Cisco does seem to be doing something right – at least when it coems to blade servers.

A few days ago the company overtook Dell as the third largest provider of blade servers on the global market. This can be attributed to a tremendous amount of growth in shipments compared to last year, and IDC estimates that Cisco currently accounts for 9.4 percent of the market.