China’s Top University Linked With Suspected Cyber-Terrorism Group

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A possible link may exist between Shanghai Jiaotong University and the unit of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that’s believed to be responsible for cyber-terrorism against the U.S. and other nations in the Western world.

The U.S. has accused China of being responsible for numerous hacking incidents on its companies, and this month China agreed to enter into talks with the U.S. on the subject.

China's Top University Linked With Suspected Cyber-Terrorism Group

Now Reuters reports that the PLA may have collaborated with the university and its students on research papers about security and networking. The papers were about detecting cyber-attacks and also about computer security. The papers’ co-authors were from the university’s School of Information Security Engineering and PLA Unit 61398, which is the unit suspected, by the U.S., to be behind many of the cyber-attacks on the West.

Of course we can’t possibly know at this time if the university itself or its students are directly involved in those cyber-attacks. All we know is that there are at least three research papers linking the university with the suspected cyber-terrorism unit.

Reuters contacted the university, which declined to comment. Also one of the university’s associate professors who was a a co-author on at least one paper with Chen Yi-qun, a PLA researcher denied having any links with the PLA unit.

The professor also said that the paper was written while the PLA researcher was a graduate student at the university and that he didn’t know that Chen was tied to the PLA when they collaborated on the paper.

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