Yet another institution has become the victim of a popular cyber attack called cryptojacking. Reportedly, St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada was forced to cut down its entire network due to a crypto-mining malware which attempted to use its systems computing power to mine cryptocurrency.
Attacks of this kind have become very popular among cybercriminal groups as a lesser amount of effort needed for compromising vulnerable systems, and the considerable higher payoff a coin mining network would bring.
So far, the probe has not revealed any signs of personal or sensitive data theft but will continue to analyze and monitor for suspicious activity in the days and weeks ahead. The statements from the press release of University revealed that,
“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 ‘cryptocoin mining.’ The malicious software attempted to utilize StFX’s collective computing power in order to create or discover bitcoin for monetary gain”
Soon after the discovery of the breach and complete closure of the network system, the admin team of the institution is trying to bring back all the shutdown servers and exercise all safety procedure to minimize all potential risks.
Meanwhile, the restoration process is complete, the statement further instructed everyone at the university to reset their university account passwords.
Cryptojacking on the Rise
Well, this is not the first instance of a high profile entity to become a victim of such malicious attack. Earlier, it was also reported that the Indian government experienced a series of cryptojacking malware attacks with several municipal governments across the country targeted
Per statistics report from McAfee Global Threat Intelligence, cryptojacking attacks have witnessed a massive increase of 86% during the second quarter of 2018, making it one of the fastest growing threat categories in cybersecurity alongside ransomware.
What are your thoughts on this series of cyber attacks? Let us know in the comment section below.
