Hackers used a Canadian university’s network to mine for cryptocurrencies

• A Candian University had to shut down its networks after discovering that it was being used by hackers to mine for cryptocurrencies.
• The hackers reportedly installed a malware to conduct the attack.

Hackers have used a Canadian university’s network to carry out a massive cryptojacking campaign. Nova Scotia's St. Francis Xavier University discovered the attack last week and disabled its network to cut off the attack. The hackers reportedly installed a malware to conduct the attack.

The university said that they had not found any evidence suggesting that any personal information was compromised or pilfered from its networks. The university also said that it will reset all account passwords as a precautionary measure.

“On Thursday, ITS, in consultation with security specialists, purposefully disabled all network systems in response to what we learned to be to be an automated attack on our systems known as ‘crytpocoin mining.’ The malicious software attempted to utilize StFX’s collective computing power in order to create or discover bitcoin for monetary gain,” St. Francis Xavier University said in a statement.

The university is still recovering from the attack and working to bring back its network resources online.

Meanwhile, cryptojacking attacks have become extremely widespread among cybercriminals. The target of the mining attacks has slowly moved away from Bitcoin to Monero as the latter takes less CPU power.