A former Federal Reserve employee has been fined $5,000 and placed on 12 months’ probation for mining bitcoin from a server at the central bank.

Nicholas Berthaume, who previously worked as a communications analyst for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, was alleged to have “installed unauthorized software on a Board server to connect to an online Bitcoin network in order to earn bitcoins.” Interestingly, Berthaume managed to run his bitcoin mining operation using the server without detection for over two years between March 2012 and June 2014.

Federal Reserve Inspector General Mark Bialek said in a statement that his office had been unable to determine just how much bitcoin Berthaume had managed to mine during his period with the Fed’s computing power. He excused the Fed’s inability to detect the practice to Berthaume’s hiding his illicit mining operation.

“[Berthaume] modified certain security safeguards so that he could remotely access the server from home,” Bialek claimed. “When confronted about these actions, Berthaume initially denied any knowledge of the wrongdoing. Later, however, Berthaume remotely deleted the software that he had installed in an effort to conceal his actions.” But forensic analysis confirmed his involvement.

The Inspector General was quick to note that the use of a Fed server for bitcoin mining had not resulted in any loss of data, but the central bank has implemented “security enhancements” to ensure that its employees do not use its resources in this way again.

Berthaume’s seemingly lenient sentence was the result of a plea bargain agreement in which he pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful conversion of government property, a misdemeanor offense versus a criminal one.

Image: Pixabay/Public Domain CC0.