A former professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has been sentenced to 20 weeks’ imprisonment over bribery to secure the admission of a mainland Chinese student to the university.

Liu Hongbin, who served as a chair professor at HKUST when the bribery took place, was sentenced on Thursday at the Kwun Tong Magistrates’ Court, local media reported.

Liu previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for a public servant to accept an advantage and two counts of offering advantages to public servants.

He admitted to accepting HK$40,000 in bribes in March and May 2025 from a friend who works as an insurance agent to help secure a mainland Chinese student’s admission to a master’s programme at HKUST.

At that time, Liu was a chair professor at the Department of Ocean Science and director of the Master of Science in Environmental Health and Safety programme, which the student applied for.

While the student was not qualified for the master’s programme, Liu ordered a lecturer to interview the student and suggested that the lecturer admit the student, the court heard earlier this month.

After the student received a conditional offer from HKUST, Liu gave HK$5,000 to the lecturer and HK$1,000 to another staff member who was responsible for admissions.

The lecturer then reported the bribery to the department manager and handed over the money. The staff member also handed over the money to the department, local media outlet The Witness reported on Thursday.

According to case details revealed in court, Liu was born in mainland China and became a permanent Hong Kong resident in 2002.

In mitigation, the defence said that Liu had seen the disbandment of his research team at HKUST and suffered from depression following his arrest.

Acting principal magistrate May Chung did not accept the defence’s argument that Liu committed the crime because he was affected by others, pointing out that he has been living in Hong Kong for many years, is highly educated, and taught at a university.

In response to media enquiries, HKUST said that Liu had resigned from the university.

A global cyberattack on online learning platform Canvas has compromised the personal information of more than 72,000 students and staff at Hong Kong schools and universities, according to the city’s privacy watchdog.

The data breaches are part of a global attack that hit almost 9,000 educational institutions worldwide, involving data from 275 million users, according to the platform’s developer, Instructure.

Seven local institutions, including three public universities, have reported the breaches to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD).

They are: the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), City University of Hong Kong (CityU), the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Hong Kong Art School, the Hong Kong Institute of Construction (HKIC), and Hong Kong Education City Limited.

The ShinyHunters hacker group allegedly held Instructure to ransom, threatening to leak the information unless the company paid, according to international media.

Instructure said it had reached an agreement with the hacker group to prevent a public leak and gave assurances that no personal information had been compromised.

Student and staff information

The CityU breach involved 28,000 students, according to the university’s report to the PCPD, the privacy watchdog said in a statement on Monday. The leaked data may have included student names, email addresses, student IDs, and messages.

The breach also affected 42,000 students and staff at PolyU, with their names and email addresses potentially compromised, according to the PCPD.

The watchdog “has advised the relevant organisations to notify those affected as soon as possible and to provide assistance as appropriate in each case, in order to prevent the breach from escalating,” it said.

Some 2,500 students and staff at the HKIC and 71 students at the Hong Kong Art School were hit by the breach. The other three institutions have yet to confirm the number of people affected.

Cybersecurity officials have called on institutions to suspend use of the online learning platform and remain vigilant against potential follow-up phishing attacks.

The Hong Kong Productivity Council chief digital officer Edmond Lai said at a press conference on Monday that such attacks could lead to further data leaks or unauthorised transactions.

He also said that the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre is using artificial intelligence tools to identify phishing websites potentially linked to the Canvas hack.

Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Raymond Lam said at a press conference on Tuesday that two police reports had been made in relation to the Canvas hack.

One report was filed by a local institution, while the other involved people who used the incident as a pretence to deceive a resident.