An employee of a food agency affiliated with the South Korean government has been charged with creating and operating a cryptocurrency mining server at work.
TheDong-A Ilbo reported that an anonymous employee of the Korea Food Research Institute was caught red-handed during an audit by the National Research and Technology Council (NST).
NST investigators found that the employee was a “director” of the institute and “stole” 12 GPUs from the company. The director then used the stolen units to “create a server for mining cryptocurrencies.” NST did not specify which token the employee was mining.
NST referred the case to local police in Wanju, North Jeolla province. Police officials accused the director of theft and breach of trust. Investigators said the director “created a mining space in a warehouse” at the institute’s public relations office, “where employees were not allowed to enter due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
The director allegedly used the research institute’s budget to “purchase mining equipment,” including air conditioners and “separate electrical equipment.” NST claims the director stole parts to set up a makeshift mining server in April 2022 and left it in operation until discovery in September 2023.
The director bypassed the firewall using a VPN
The director’s ingenuity allegedly didn’t end there. The institute, like many companies affiliated with the South Korean government, blocks access to sites and software related to cryptocurrency digging and cryptocurrency wallets.
However, the director managed to get around the problem by using a VPN to bypass the institute’s firewalls. In addition, the director, according to officials, “impersonated” a colleague by using his account to purchase another dedicated GPU for cryptocurrency digging.
The institute began to suspect something was amiss when it conducted an inventory check, which revealed that some GPUs were missing. A subsequent audit seemed to reveal that an unauthorized external network was connected to its system . The NST audit committee believes the director caused “damage worth about 7.86 million won [$5866].”
