Ex-Employee at Australian Science Agency Avoids Prison After Mining Crypto on Supercomputers

A former contractor for Australian science agency CSIRO was found to have mined around $7,000 in cryptocurrency.

By Sebastian Sinclair

Sep 18, 2020 at 8:28 a.m. UTC

Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 9:57 a.m. UTC

CSIRO Australia — (Nils Versemann/Shutterstock)

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A former employee of an Australian federal agency has avoided prison after he was caught using government supercomputers to mine for cryptocurrency.

According to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday, Jonathan Khoo, 34, worked as a contractor for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Between January and February 2018, Khoo implemented code in two supercomputers for the purpose of mining cryptocurrency for his own personal financial gain.
Khoo was able to mine ether and monero worth a reported A$9,420 (US$6,897), which he deposited into his own personal wallets.
The CSIRO estimated Khoo's illegal mining pursuits cost the agency A$76,668 (US$56,133) worth of computing power and other resources.
Magistrate Erin Kennedy handed Khoo a 15-month intensive correction order on Friday; he will serve out his sentence via 300 hours of community service plus counseling.
After being discovered in February 2018, Australian federal police issued a search warrant and arrested Khoo later that month, the report said.
His actions "diverted" valuable computing power resources away from "significant scientific research," federal police cybercrime operations commander Chris Goldsmid said, including "data array analysis, medical research and climate modeling work."
The disgraced employee's lawyer told the local court that Khoo had no prior offenses and was remorseful for his actions.
Magistrate Kennedy on handing down the sentence acknowledged Khoo's guilty plea, but noted it was significant the CSIRO had been targeted and said Khoo's sentence had to act as a general deterrent.
In Australia, the maximum penalty for the crime – unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment – carries a sentence of 10 years imprisonment.

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