A former engineer was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty of using his former employer’s cloud server for crypto mining.
Ex-employee and engineer at e-commerce company, Digital River, was found guilty of using his employer’s cloud server for mining crypto. The convicted, Joshua Paul Armbrust, 45, was charged with a felony count of computer fraud documented by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota. U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell sentenced Armbrust to three years of probation for illegally mining cryptocurrency.
Armbrust resigned from Digital River in February 2020. However, the bad actor continued to access the company’s Amazon Web Services account remotely between December 2020 and May 2021, during which he ran a program to mine cryptocurrency without authorization.
Defending his client, the attorney William J. Mauzy stated that Ambrust’s illicit action was a result of desperation and that he was not a malicious hacker. The convict’s action happened, “during a time of extreme financial need and considerable emotional distress,” when he was looking after his ailing mother, who passed away eventually, Mauzy mentioned.
However, according to the Department of Justice, “This unauthorized access resulted in substantial costs for the company, totaling over $45,000. The mined Ethereum was directed into a digital wallet and subsequently transferred to Armbrust’s Coinbase accounts. Armbrust then liquidated the mined Ethereum, totaling over $7,000, and transferred the proceeds to his Wells Fargo banking account.”
