University supercomputers served as mining targets and pivots
A federal grand jury indicted two Canadians, Ryan James Roach and Mathiew James Stubbings, over alleged intrusions into US university systems from June 2016 through December 2019 to mine Electroneum. Roach has been extradited to the United States; Stubbings remains subject to extradition proceedings.
According to the indictment, the operators also used previously compromised campus machines as pivots: routing activity through them made it appear to come from another campus system, masking the operators’ origins. Their servers delivered malware and mining software and stored stolen login credentials; once inside networks, the men allegedly conducted reconnaissance and expanded their access.
For universities with shared research-computing environments, this was more than stolen processor time: credentials and internal access were also in play. But the reported campaign ended in 2019, so the indictment adds historical context, not evidence of a present foothold.
US charges two Canadians accused of hacking US universities
A federal grand jury indicted two Canadians suspected of hacking multiple US universities and using the compromised systems to mine for cryptocurrency.