A technical supervisor at a Dutch wind farm operator has been sentenced to 120 hours of neighborhood service after it was found he had secretly put in cryptocurrency mining rigs at two wind farm websites – simply as the corporate was recovering from a ransomware assault.
Wind farm operator Nordex found that its generators weren’t solely producing inexperienced vitality, however had been additionally powering a secret cryptocurrency mining operation at two of its websites in Gieterveen and Waardpolder.
The unnamed rogue worker, who’s in his forties, linked three cryptocurrency mining rigs and two Helium community nodes (a tool which acts as each a wi-fi gateway and blockchain node) to his employer’s inner community between August and November 2022.
The mining rigs had been plugged instantly into Nordex’s router at a substation in Gieterveen, whereas the Helium hotspots had been put in contained in the precise wind generators on the Waardpolder web site.
A courtroom in Assen heard that Nordex had shortly earlier than it found the unauthorised cryptomining gear been coping with a ransomware assault orchestrated by the infamous Conti gang.
The Dutch man is way from alone in trying to show firm sources into cryptocurrency, as I’ve reported up to now.
As an illustration, in February 2018, a number of scientists on the Russian Federal Nuclear Middle in Sarov – a top-secret nuclear warhead facility – had been arrested for trying to make use of one of many nation’s strongest supercomputers to mine Bitcoin. One in every of them, Denis Baykov, was finally fined 450,000 rubles after being discovered responsible.
In the identical 12 months in China, headmaster Lei Hua misplaced his job after stealing the varsity’s electrical energy to energy a secret cryptocurrency-mining rig of eight servers that ran day and night time mining Ethereum.
Within the wind farm case, the courtroom was instructed that the worker confirmed “no concern” concerning the potential disruption his motion might have brought on to turbine operations, used to generate energy for 1000’s of houses.
Ordered to pay €4,155.65 in damages to Nordex, plus the identical quantity to the state, the person has been sentenced to 120 hours of neighborhood service.
All organisations ought to do not forget that insider threats are a major drawback, particularly with technical workers having privileged entry to methods and information.
On this occasion, the message is evident. Renewable vitality could also be for the general public good, however that doesn’t imply that it’s essentially acceptable for the general public to take advantage of or monetise.
