Between December and January, the unit, widely known as Salt Typhoon, “possibly targeted” — based on devices that were accessed — offices in the University of California, Los Angeles, California State University, Loyola Marymount University and Utah Tech University, according to a report from cyber threat intelligence firm Recorded Future.
The hackers attempted to exploit vulnerabilities in at least 1,000 Cisco devices, allowing them to access higher-level privileges of the hardware and change their configuration settings to allow for persistent access to the networks they’re connected on.
Over half of the Cisco appliances targeted by Salt Typhoon were located in the U.S., South America and India, with the rest spread across more than 100 countries. The Cisco devices were mainly associated with telecommunications firms, but 13 of them were linked to the universities in the U.S. and some in other nations.
“The protection of the personal information and proprietary data of California State University’s students, faculty and staff is among our highest priorities,” a CSU spokesperson said. “The CSU has security measures in place to reduce the likelihood of cyber incidents, but should one occur, immediate action is taken to reduce further exposure.”
The other U.S. institutions did not return a request for comment.
Educational institutions in Argentina, Bangladesh, Thailand are among those that may also have been targeted, Recorded Future said.
“Often involved in cutting-edge research, universities are prime targets for Chinese state-sponsored threat activity groups to acquire valuable research d ..
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