WASHINGTON >> The U.S. government’s cyber defense agency has issued urgent guidance to other federal agencies over hackers exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Cisco security devices.

In an emergency directive issued Thursday, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said government cyber workers had just over one day to account for all such devices plugged into their networks, scan them for malicious activity, and apply relevant software updates intended to patch the vulnerability.

“This widespread campaign poses a significant risk to victims’ networks,” CISA said in a statement.

The affected equipment included a subset of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) 5500-X Series devices, which work as firewalls protecting corporate networks from hackers.

Although

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