Employees Caught Mining Bitcoins at Work

We all have been down that road. Some of us use the photocopy machine to print out gaming materials. Some of us steal paper. I know at least one lady who hasn't bought toilet paper in the last 5 years. Now, let's have a show of hands here: How many of you are using your office resource to mine coins?

It would be extremely convenient if you were working in a large office and have a habit of leaving your computer running overnight.

In the US at least, many US Government employees were caught mining bitcoins at work.

Vldimir Ilyayev, an employee of the Department of Education in New York had to forfeit four days of his paid annual leave – worth a total of $611 USD – because he was caught mining bitcoins for several weeks between the period of March and April, 2014. Apparently, he installed mining software which only ran at night and monitored the whole process back at his home. This case was not treated as seriously as it would have been now since Bitcoin was not banned in New York at that point of time. If he had kept those Bitcoins, the fine would have been negligible for the amount he would have made off corporate resource.

The funny thing is… this wasn’t the first time an employee at the Department of Education has mined bitcoins with work computers. In April 2015, a network engineer was caught trying to run a mining software on his work computer at the Department of Education. He was saved from getting fired as there was no clear evidence to prove that he has indeed successfully mined bitcoins with the department’s equipment. I really wouldn't be surprised to learn that it has become a norm for network engineers to be running a covert mining farm in their company's server room. Very rarely do anyone walk in to check on them unless it's to complain about a faulty mouse.

The most forehead-slapping ‘mine-bitcoins-at-work’ case has got to be the one involving the employee of the Federal Reserve Board of Directors. Apparently, he was caught mining bitcoins on a private server which was a property of the US central bank. The balls! He was placed on probation and was fined $5,000 in January, this year. A small price to pay for being worshipped as a hero by anti-establishment groups.

I would like to do a social experiment here. If you are using company's resource to mine your coins, please drop me a private message or leave me a comment below (if you think your boss is not likely to read my post). I would like to find out what type of configuration you're running.

You can connect with me on www.facebook.com/CryptoCentral.Net

Cover picture credit: Simon Pegg from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation