Canadian Man Extradited to US Over Alleged Cryptomining Attacks on Universities

The US Justice Department says two Canadian men broke into the networks of multiple American universities, stole credentials and installed malware to use the computers' processing power for cryptocurrency mining. Ryan James Roach and Mathiew James Stubbings allegedly compromised at least four universities, in New York, Tennessee, North Carolina and Massachusetts, between mid 2016 and late 2019, according to an unsealed indictment.

Roach, 35, from Saskatchewan, was extradited to the United States on Oct. 28 and arraigned in the US District Court for the Western District of New York. Prosecutors are still seeking the extradition of Stubbings, 41, from Ontario. A grand jury indicted both men in April 2022. They face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 if convicted.

Prosecutors allege the pair identified victims running supercomputers with vulnerabilities they could exploit. They are also accused of renting virtual private servers in Europe and the US under false identities to hide their traffic, deploy rootkits, steal credentials and data, and send mining software to compromised machines. The indictment says at least one supercomputer was made to mine cryptocurrency, leaving much of its processing power unavailable to its legitimate owner. Officials did not say how much cryptocurrency was mined. If convicted, the men must also forfeit networking and data storage devices and any proceeds of the alleged crimes.