Baidu Employee Received a Prison Sentence For Mining At the Workplace

Baidu senior engineer, 31-year-old An BANG, a native of China, was sentenced to three years in prison after using the company's servers for cryptocurrency mining. Illegal mining brought him a profit of 100,000 RMB (about $14,300). The engineer worked in the search operations and maintenance department of the company.

The specialist installed software on 200 Baidu servers from April to July 2018, which allowed him to mine Monero cryptocurrency. Baidu claimed it noticed unusual activity on its servers and contacted the police to investigate the issue. The engineer was accused of illegal use of a computer system. The court sentenced him to three years in prison and fined 11,000 RMB.

This is not the first case of illegal mining using company’s equipment. In October 2019, an employee of the nuclear center in the Russian town Sarov was sentenced to three years in prison for mining using an ultra-powerful computer of the nuclear center.

Image courtesy of Reuters