Baidu Employee

Recently, an engineer at Baidu, China’s own search engine like Google, has been imprisoned for mining Monero on about 200 of the company’s servers.

As per to a March 16 report by a local media outlet, Abacus News, the employee ultimately sold the Monero for nearby 100,000 yuan ($14,300).

However, the extra load on the systems was found by the company, which assembled a report to police, appearing in the staffer’s arrest.

Thus, he has been eventually held for three years’ jail time and a penalty of 11,000 Chinese yuan ($1,568) in sentencing last month, according to the report.

Well, the case is the most advanced in a sequence of instances where employees have submitted to the ease of access to workplace power or infrastructure to try and obtain some free crypto, only to fall offensive of the law.

Why it matters?

The mining process of confirming transactions on a blockchain for compensation is counting and power-intensive, resulting in high electricity practice. Well, the cryptocurrency dealing is illegal in China, but the mining is not.

Thus, the country accounts for about 66% of all mining transactions globally, with the southwestern Sichuan region getting the lion’s share.

The main point is that a 31-year-old from northeast China, connected software on 200 of Baidu’s servers between April and July 2018, permitting him to utilize the computing power to mine Monero.

Not only that, but there are also some added information as following:-

  • He made around RMB 100,000 from the mining process, that’s what a court document designated.
  • The engineer accompanied Baidu in 2016, where he operated in the company’s research operations and preservation department.
  • Baidu stated that the company saw unusual activity on its servers and communicated the police after examining the issue.
  • He was accused of illegally gaining control of a computer system, and confined to three years in jail and fined RMB 11,000.
  • The further resource use cost Baidu about RMB 27,000, as per the document.

Recently, in Russia, scientists were given time in a penal colony at a top-secret nuclear lab or penalties for the same crime.

Not only this, but Ukraine has also had staff inside its court system, and railways grabbed red-handed mining their illegal and unauthorized gains at work.

As per the Cointelegraph announced last November, Chinese officials removed Bitcoin mining from their account of unwanted industries, basically scrapping an earlier mooted plan to ban the projects.

Though, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading were forbidden in the country, with officials promising to break down on the activity.

But, China is considered to be one of the nations resembling launching its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), however, the fact is that the explosion of coronavirus will simply delay these programs.

So, what do you think about this? Simply share all your views and thoughts in the comment section below. And if you liked this post then simply do not forget to share this post with your friends, family, and on your social profiles as well.

Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.