Last week, several scientists at a top Russian nuclear research facility were arrested for mining cryptocurrency using facilities at the nuclear centre.
The detained suspects were working as engineers at the Russian Federation Nuclear Centre Facility, a research institute known for developing nuclear weapons. This centre was the place where the first Soviet Union's nuclear bombs were made.
According to reports from Interfax, the engineers were caught red-handed while trying to connect the lab's supercomputer to the internet... normally these computers are made to work offline for security reasons.
"There has been an unsanctioned attempt to use computer facilities for private purposes including so-called mining," Tatyana Zalesskaya, head of the institute's press service told Interfax news.
"Their activities were stopped in time. the bungling miners have been detained by the competent authorities. As far as i know, a criminal case has been opened regarding them," Zalesskaya said.
In 2011, the Russian Federation Nuclear Centre put to use a supercomputer which was the most powerful in the world at that time, with a computing capacity of 1 petaflop.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) is yet to issue a statement regarding the arrests and charges.