Russian nuclear research employee sentenced to three years for mining cryptocurrencies at work

Andrey Rybkin, an employee at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, has been sentenced to three years in a prison colony and fined 200,000 rubles ($3,122) for using his workplace’s resources to mine cryptocurrencies. The specific charges in the case included spreading viruses and obtaining illegal access to digital information using a professional position.

The press service for the court that sentenced Rybkin told journalists that the scientist collaborated with two of his coworkers beginning in May 2017 to mine cryptocurrencies on unused work computers through their institute’s local network. The other two employees implicated in the case have both been fined, and one also received a four-year suspended sentence. Damages to the institute have been estimated at more than a million rubles ($15,605).