S Korean Government Agency Director ‘Ran Crypto Mining Server at Work’

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).

Crypto Mining Server Made from Stolen GPUs, Auditors Say

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.”

Director Bypassed Firewall with VPN: Auditor

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 institute’s firewalls.

Additionally, the director, officers claim, “impersonated” a fellow employee, using their account to purchase another dedicated crypto mining GPU.

The institute began to suspect that something was amiss when it conducted an inventory check that revealed some of its GPUs were missing.

Another check seemed to reveal that an unauthorized external network was connected to its system.

The NST’s audit committee thinks that the director caused “approximately 7.86 million won [$5,866] worth of damage.”

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It also recommended that the Institute recover the damages and recommended that the director be dismissed.

The auditors also said the director “falsely registered attendance records” and “forged private documents.”

It concluded that the institute should “re-examine the status of its network operations” to “strengthen security.”

In 2021, investigators discovered a government employee mining Ethereum (ETH) beneath Seoul’s most famous opera house.