Mining Attack affects Canadian University Network for 4 days

Cryptocurrency related attacks have surpassed all other types of cyber attacks in 2018. Spike in cryptocurrency prices and beefed up security measures following relentless run of heists have compelled threat actors to adopt unethical means to mine cryptocurrency. Cyber criminals have turned to launch Cryptocoin mining attacks on users’ system and exploit their resources.

Recently an automated mining Attack on Canadian University, St. Francis Xavier launched by unknown threat actors compelled the university officials to shut down its entire computer network for four days.

The mining attack was launched to steal computing power and bend it towards cryptocurrency mining.

Nova Scotia’s St. Francis Xavier University unveiled a Crypto Jacking scheme on 15th November 2018 on its networks. The malicious software was implanted on the servers that attempted to utilize the StFX’s collective computing power to mine cryptocurrency for monetary gains.

Though there is no evidence of loss of personal information within the compromised network, the breach interfered with basic access to following network resources:

1.Email accounts
2.WiFi
3.Debit transactions
4.Online courses
5.Storage Drives

Following the incident, security specialist disabled all network systems and asked students and faculty to change the passwords of all the services they were using.

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