Two Canadian men broke into the networks of multiple U.S. universities, stole credentials and implanted malware on compromised computers to commandeer processing power for a cryptocurrency mining operation, the Justice Department said.
Ryan James Roach and Mathiew James Stubbings allegedly compromised the networks of at least four universities in New York, Tennessee, North Carolina and Massachusetts between mid 2016 and late 2019, according to an unsealed indictment.
Roach, a 35-year-old from Saskatchewan, Canada, was extradited to the United States on Oct. 28 and arraigned Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. Prosecutors said they are still seeking the extradition of Stubbings, a 41-year-old from Ontario, Canada.
A grand jury previously indicted the Canadian nationals in April 2022. The men are charged with multiple cybercrimes and face up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine, if convicted.
Prosecutors accuse the men of researching and identifying potential victims with supercomputers containing vulnerabilities they could exploit. The men breached networks and deployed malware on compromised machines to take over systems, officials said.
Roach and Stubbings allegedly rented virtual private servers based in Europe and the United States under false identities to conceal traffic, deploy rootkits, steal credentials and data, and transmit cryptocurrency mining software to compromised computers.
“The defendants caused at least one supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency on their behalf, which caused much of the supercomputer’s processing speed and power to become unavailable to its legitimate owner,” prosecutors wrote in the indictment.
Officials didn’t say how much cryptocurrency the pair allegedly mined for financial gain as part of the conspiracy.
If convicted, Roach and Stubbings are also ordered to forfeit an assortment of networking and data storage devices, and any property or proceeds obtained through the alleged crime spree.
Written by Matt Kapko
Matt Kapko is a reporter at CyberScoop, covering cybercrime, software defects and the root causes of cyberattacks. The lifelong Californian has more than 25 years of experience in journalism. Drop Matt an email at matt.kapko@cyberscoop.com.
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