Canadian man extradited to the United States for hacking into U.S. university computers to mine cryptocurrency.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced that Ryan James Roach, a 35-year-old from Saskatchewan, Canada, has been extradited to the U.S. over his role in a university computer hacking plot. Roach was arraigned following an indictment by a federal grand jury and is currently being held in custody pending trial. Co-defendant Mathiew James Stubbings, a 41-year-old from Ontario, remains in Canada and is undergoing extradition proceedings. The two face charges including conspiracy to obtain information from protected computers and cause damage, accessing protected computer information, and intentionally damaging protected computers, with each carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Indictments state the pair conspired between June 2016 and December 2019 to hack into computers, steal login credentials, and secretly hijack computing power for cryptocurrency mining to generate profit. Victims include educational institutions in New York, Tennessee, North Carolina and Massachusetts, with some damaged devices located at a university in New York’s Western District. Prosecutors allege the pair damaged more than 10 protected computers over a one-year period.