Joshua Paul Armbrust, a 45-year-old former engineer at e-commerce company Digital River, was sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation for illegally mining Ethereum on the company’s cloud servers. The U.S. District Court in Minnesota handed down the sentence after Armbrust pleaded guilty in April to a felony count of computer fraud, marking a high-profile example of cryptojacking within corporate environments.
After resigning from Digital River in February 2020, Armbrust continued to access the company’s Amazon Web Services account between December 2020 and May 2021. During this period, he ran an unauthorized program that mined Ethereum daily between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m., transferring the mined coins to his personal wallet. Prosecutors noted that while Armbrust generated approximately $5,800 worth of Ethereum, the illicit activity cost Digital River roughly $45,270 in cloud-service fees before it was detected.
Defense attorney William J. Mauzy emphasized that Armbrust acted during a period of financial hardship and emotional strain while caring for his ailing mother. Mauzy argued that Armbrust’s conduct was born of desperation rather than malicious intent, noting that he did not attempt to conceal the mining activity and had accepted full responsibility. Despite these mitigating factors, prosecutors framed the scheme as a deliberate misuse of company resources, leading to tangible financial losses and operational disruption.
This case also underscores the technological context of Ethereum mining before the blockchain’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in September 2022. At the time of Armbrust’s activity, mining required significant computational power and energy, which contributed directly to the company’s operational costs. The broader implications of the case highlight ongoing vulnerabilities in cloud-based systems and the potential for employees to exploit enterprise computing resources for personal gain.
For the corporate sector, this serves as a reminder of the importance of monitoring cloud access and enforcing strict cybersecurity protocols. For the crypto industry, the incident illustrates that unauthorized mining, even on a relatively small scale, carries legal consequences and can materially affect businesses. As Ethereum and other networks evolve, organizations must remain vigilant against emerging threats such as cryptojacking and smart contract-based malware, including techniques like EtherHiding reportedly used by state-sponsored actors.
Armbrust’s sentence closes one chapter of this high-profile case but signals a broader trend of legal scrutiny around cryptocurrency-related cybercrime. As regulators and companies adapt to the growing presence of crypto technologies, cases like this will likely shape both compliance practices and corporate security strategies in the years ahead.
