NIO sysadmin cops to mining Ethereum on the EV maker's servers, 'negatively impacting the company's system security'

According to a leaked internal document from electric carmaker NIO's compliance and risk management department, a system administrator in charge of a cluster of servers at the company has been using them for mining Ethereum. The risk control notice advises that the actions of the employee have not only been illegal, given China's ban on crypto mining introduced last year, but are also "negatively impacting the company's system security and business information security."

NIO's team responsible for the development and execution of its self-driving software algorithms consists of more than 400 people and, while it isn't clear if the jerry-rigged servers were from that department, its task is an example of a critical service that may be negatively affected by crypto mining. The sysadmin named Zhang admitted to their actions and said they have been mining Ethereum on the company's dime for more than a year before they got caught in the fall.

This period coincides with the stratospheric rise in the price of all cryptocurrencies last year which may have prompted NIO's sysadmin to jump into Ethereum mining on the company's servers. It isn't clear if the employee has been dismissed after copping to the illegal activity, or if they have been a subject of another disciplinary action.

Get the AntMiner L3+ 500MH/s Litecoin Miner on Amazon