(Yicai Global) Feb. 26 -- A Chinese court has jailed three  hackers for three to four years each for running Trojan malware that  secretly mines cryptocurrency on 8,000 computers in the country. 

A Hangzhou court also fined the perpetrators between CNY12,000  (USD1,795) each, state-backed news outlet The Paper reported yesterday.

Cryptomining involves solving complex  problems to verify digital transactions using computer hardware and  processing power. Miners are able to create digital currency themselves  through the process or can receive cryptocurrency as repayment for the  processing power used.

The case emerged after Hangzhou public security received a  report from an internet café last July that its electricity fees had  soared in the preceding months and the owner suspected that the  above-mentioned malware was to blame. 

One of the defendants surnamed Wang ran a network technology  firm providing information system maintenance for over 100 internet  cafes in Hangzhou. He worked with employees surnamed Liu and Li to make  money via cloud computing platforms which used more than 8,000 client  computers to mine cryptocurrency without their knowledge since the end  of 2017. 

The trio gained illegal profits totaling CNY170,000, according to the investigation. Wang  was sentenced to four years and fined CNY20,000. Liu and Li were each  sentenced to three years and received fines of CNY15,000 and CNY12,000,  respectively.

Editor: William Clegg