According to a report from the Workers' Daily, the Changping District People's Court in Beijing recently released a case where an employee used his position to illegally obtain virtual currency for profit, constituting the crime of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system. Zhang, a blockchain engineer at a certain internet company, learned that there was a large amount of Ethereum in the account while participating in the project development, and planned to attack the company's account to obtain it.
He took advantage of his work to ask his colleagues for program code and private keys beyond his authority, and shared them with a "technical exchange group", inviting group members to crack and attack the company's account, successfully obtaining 106.15 Ethereum, and illegally profiting 38,329.76 yuan.
The court held that Zhang violated the regulations, illegally obtained Ethereum information from the company's computer system and traded for profit, constituting the crime of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system. Although there were loopholes in the company's management, this was not a reason to exempt Zhang from criminal liability. Ultimately, Zhang was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison, fined 60,000 yuan, and the illegal gains of 38,329.76 yuan were confiscated. The appeal was rejected, and the original judgment was upheld.
