Alleged Salt Typhoon hackers Yu Yang and Qiu Daibing were claimed by SentinelLabs researcher Dakota Cary to have been part of Cisco's Networking Academy Cup over a decade ago, The Register reports.
Yu and Qui who co-own Beijing Huanyu, a Chinese tech firm discovered to be among the front companies for the Chinese state-backed threat operation joined the 2012 Cisco academy cup as representatives for the Southwest Petroleum University, with the training purportedly leveraged to assist with Beijing's hacking initiatives, according to Cary.
Such findings should prompt vendors providing training programs in "geopolitically unfriendly regions" to understand how offensive cyber training could be obtained by malicious actors.
"Microsoft's sharing of source code with the MSS has long been touted as a Faustian bargain by the security community. Education initiatives fall short of such acclaim, but may come to present more risk than return as the Chinese Communist Party remakes the country's computer networks with home-grown technology as the Delete America document makes clear is their goal," said Cary.
Yu and Qui who co-own Beijing Huanyu, a Chinese tech firm discovered to be among the front companies for the Chinese state-backed threat operation joined the 2012 Cisco academy cup as representatives for the Southwest Petroleum University, with the training purportedly leveraged to assist with Beijing's hacking initiatives, according to Cary.
Such findings should prompt vendors providing training programs in "geopolitically unfriendly regions" to understand how offensive cyber training could be obtained by malicious actors.
"Microsoft's sharing of source code with the MSS has long been touted as a Faustian bargain by the security community. Education initiatives fall short of such acclaim, but may come to present more risk than return as the Chinese Communist Party remakes the country's computer networks with home-grown technology as the Delete America document makes clear is their goal," said Cary.
