TechFlow news, November 21 — According to the Workers' Daily, the Changping District People's Court in Beijing recently released a case in which an employee profited illegally by obtaining cryptocurrency using his position, constituting the crime of illegally acquiring data from computer information systems. Zhang, a blockchain engineer at a tech company, learned during project development that certain accounts held a large amount of Ethereum and planned to attack these accounts for personal gain. Taking advantage of his job, he requested program code and private keys beyond his authorized access from colleagues, then shared them in a "technical discussion group," inviting members to crack and attack the company’s accounts. As a result, he successfully stole 106.15 ETH and made illegal profits of RMB 38,329.76.
The court ruled that Zhang violated regulations by illegally accessing Ethereum data from the company’s computer systems and profiting from it, thus committing the crime of illegally acquiring data from computer information systems. Although the company had management vulnerabilities, this did not excuse Zhang’s criminal actions. Ultimately, Zhang was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, fined RMB 60,000, and ordered to forfeit his illegal gains of RMB 38,329.76. The appellate court rejected his appeal and upheld the original verdict.
