Chinese espionage group burrowed into universities

Source: CyberScoop

China-aligned attackers broke into the networks of U.S. and Canadian universities to steal sensitive data and establish persistent access via webshells and backdoors, Proofpoint threat researchers said this week. The espionage-motivated attacks targeted physics and engineering departments, focusing on administrators and professors with national security links or organizations researching astrophysics and particle physics. Proofpoint estimates a few dozen universities may be impacted. The company first observed the campaign in May and believes the campaign is ongoing. Researchers traced the attacks to a pair of critical vulnerabilities in Roundcube, an open-source email client, that were exploited and chained together to steal credentials and gain long-term access. Full Story