More Than $800,000 stolen by Hackers from Cape Cod Community College

In a cyber security attack, the Cape Cod Community College got impacted. The cyber security attack compromised the college campus computers through a phishing attack by dropping a malware payload, which is specifically designed to steal the banking information.

The President of Cape Cod Community College, John Cox, wrote an email to the college faculty and staff on the afternoon of December 7, 2018, as per which many computers in Nickerson Administration Building of the college were hacked by the phishing scheme which used malware to get an access to college accounts.

In his email to the College faculty, President Cox further added that theft was being investigated by the federal and state officials, in which the hackers used "sophisticated, malicious malware designed to evade common antivirus software. As a result of this attack, college banking information was compromised and $807,130 was fraudulently transferred".

As per the Spokesman of the College, the hackers obtained the banking information from college by sending computer viruses through e-mail that gets lodged in computer and then stole the college banking information. The college spokesman added that after stealing the bank information, the hackers fraudulently transferred money from the college account to the TD Bank.

John Cox told to Cape Cod Times that the email seems to have come from another college, so the person who has clicked on it did not find anything suspicious about it at first. It was only later when the IT officials of the college carried out a diagnostic test that they found the infected virus. However, the virus has been quarantined very late. As per Cox, the malware targeted financial transactions of the college and already made nine fraudulent transactions.

However, Cox stated that the college identified and has been able to prevent numerous subsequent attacks on their network. Moreover, the college has worked with the bank to recover $278,887 out of the amount that has been stolen. Cox further adds in his email that the process to recover more money is still going on.

The college said that no personal information of the students or the college employees has been compromised in the attack. Cox also stated in his email that "payroll and other financial services will not be impacted".

Besides, Cox said that "the college is also continuing to install next-generation endpoint protection software campus wide, and is reinforcing security protocols with our employees."

» SPAMfighter News - 12/27/2018