Bahrain police arrest university IT expert for mining crypto at office

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Mining cryptos these days are akin to mining gold. The way its value soars has made it one of the most captivating investments in the world. The downside, however, is that mining them requires astonishing amounts of electricity.

Reports say the Bitcoin network uses about the same units of electricity as Washington State does yearly. But what if one could make thousands of dinars by mining crypto at the office- where your company pays for electricity? Tempting. Isn’t it? But it could also land you in jail. The latest example comes from the land of two seas, a.k.a. Bahrain. Bahraini investigators say they had arrested a man -- an IT expert-- for running a 28-machine mining set-up right from the server room of a university here. He allegedly had been running the University-based mining operation since 2019. How much profit he had earned from the operation is not yet disclosed.

The University, however, said they suffered losses to the tune of BD20,000, thanks to the unauthorised mining. By doing so, the suspect had also adversely affected other operations of the University on the same network. The suspect, an IT expert, initially operated his mining machines from his home but later shifted them to a room housing the internet server of the University in a bid to save some money on the internet and electricity. But the scheme faltered when a University staff who spotted and grew suspicious of the machines in the server room reported that to the University.

Surprised by the unprecedented crime, the University reported the incident to the police. However, when questioned, the suspect denied having any connection to the systems at first. He, however, failed to hold his grounds when confronted with solid evidence.

The man confessed to installing the systems in the University as early as 2019 amid the Coronavirus outbreak. University officials said they suffered a loss of BD20,000 in electricity consumption during these years. The suspect will face criminal proceedings before the High Criminal Court.

What do the experts say?

Experts opinion that when people do such things, it goes beyond stealing electricity, as it could slow down the entire work of the establishment. Besides, installing crypto-mining software into systems not designed for such operations would create other potential vulnerabilities, including malware attacks. It would hamper the entire network’s health and would stop operating smoothly.