S Korean Government Agency Director ‘Ran Crypto Mining Server at Work’
Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...
A South Korean government-affiliated food agency employee has been charged with creating and running a crypto mining server at work.
Dong-A Ilbo reported that the unnamed Korea Food Research Institute employee was caught in the act during an audit by the National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST).
NST investigators said the employee was a “director” at the institute, and had “stolen” 12 GPUs from the firm.
The director then used the “stolen” units to “create a server for cryptocurrency mining.” The NST did not specify which token the employee mined.
The NST handed the case to the local police in Wanju, North Jeolla Province. Police officers have since charged the director with theft and breach of trust-related offenses.
Investigators said the director “set up a mining space in a warehouse” in 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 “buy mining equipment,” including air conditioning units and “separate electrical facilities.”
The NST claims that the director stole the parts to create the makeshift mining server “in April 2022,” and left it to operate until “it was discovered in September 2023.”
The director’s ingenuity allegedly did not end here, however. The institute, like many South Korean government-affiliated firms, blocks access to crypto mining and crypto wallet-related websites and software.
But the director reportedly managed to use a VPN-powered workaround to bypass the
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