Deep Tide TechFlow News, on November 21, according to Workers' Daily, the People's Court of Changping District, Beijing recently released a case where an employee used their position to illegally obtain virtual currency for profit, constituting the crime of illegally acquiring data from a computer information system. Zhang, a blockchain engineer at a certain network company, learned during project development that there was a large amount of Ethereum in the account, and planned to attack the company's account to obtain it. He took advantage of his position to request program codes and private keys beyond his authority from colleagues and shared them in a certain '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 regulations by illegally obtaining Ethereum information from the company's computer system and profiting from transactions, constituting the crime of illegally acquiring data from a computer information system. Although there were management loopholes in the company, this was not an excuse for Zhang's crime. 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 second-instance ruling dismissed the appeal and upheld the original judgment.