Former Huobi employees jailed for stealing users’ private keys

Former Huobi employees have been handed jail sentences of three years for their involvement in stealing users’ private keys, according to Chinese police. The employees, identified as Zhang, Dong, Liu, and Zhang Yi, planted Trojans in the wallets, enabling them to gain access to sensitive information. The exact amount of stolen cryptocurrencies has not been disclosed. The employees started their criminal activities in early March 2023, embedding a backdoor program into a crypto wallet software to capture private keys. By the end of May 2023, they had collected over 40,000 mnemonics and private keys, with plans to use them to steal cryptocurrencies two years later. The court documents reveal that they successfully stole over 27,000 mnemonics and more than 10,000 private keys, converting over 19,000 wallet addresses. The Xuhui District People’s Court sentenced them to three years in prison and imposed fines for illegally obtaining computer information system data. One victim, Ou, discovered that their wallet on another platform had also been compromised by one of the employees. It was later revealed that Zhang had collected user mnemonics and private keys back in 2021. The original Huobi Company, now known as iToken, stated that the actions were the personal behavior of former employees and that they have cooperated with the authorities for investigations and evidence collection.