Two men linked to China’s Salt Typhoon hacker group likely trained in a Cisco ‘Academy’

CISCO’s Networking Academy, a global training program designed to educate IT students in the basics of IT networks and cybersecurity, proudly touts its accessibility to participants around the world: “We believe education can be the ultimate equalizer, enabling anyone, regardless of background, to develop expertise and shape their destiny in a digital era,” reads the first line on its website.

That laudable statement, however, reads a bit differently when the “destiny” of those students appears to be owning a majority stake in companies linked to one of the most successful Chinese state-sponsored hacking operations ever to target the West—and many of Cisco’s own products.

That’s the surprising conclusion of Dakota Cary, a researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne and the Atlantic Council, who, like many security analysts, has closely tracked the Chinese state-sponsored hacker group known as Salt Typhoon. That cyberespionage group gained notoriety last year when it was revealed that the hackers had penetrated at least nine telecom companies and gained the ability to spy on Americans’ real-time calls and texts, specifically targeting then-presidential and vice presidential candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance, among many others. Salt Typhoon has come to be known, in fact, for its sophisticated hacking of network devices—including those sold by Cisco, the world’s biggest networking company. US government agencies have warned that the hackers exploited Cisco’s vulnerabilities to obtain user credentials and stealthily move through IT networks without planting malware on victims’ machines that can be detected by typical security measures.

Read more at Wired