When you leave, hand over all account access; do not delete databases, leave backdoors, or change passwords and lock the system — even if the company owes you money

Account passwords the company gave you do not mean you may still use them after you leave. Illegally controlling a system, when circumstances are serious, brings up to 3 years. Deleting data so the system cannot run, with serious consequences, brings up to 5 years, or 5 years or more if especially serious. An engineer who was dismissed logged in with the old admin account, deleted data and logs, caused over 120000 yuan in losses, and got 3 years suspended for 5 years plus a 30000 yuan fine

Cost

No money spent. If the company owes you wages, get them back through labor arbitration; do not act yourself (labor arbitration is in Section 7). The hard part is holding back from touching the system while angry

Benefit

Illegally controlling a computer information system, when circumstances are serious, brings up to 3 years and a fine concurrently or alone; especially serious cases bring 3 to 7 years. Deleting or modifying system functions or data so the system cannot run normally, with serious consequences, brings up to 5 years; especially serious cases bring 5 years or more. Official case: senior IT engineer Lü, after being dismissed, logged into the company shared server with the old admin account. He changed the password, deleted data and logs, and caused over 120000 yuan in losses. Sentence: 3 years suspended for 5 years, fine 30000 yuan. Software-company employee Bai deliberately inserted faulty code into an upgrade program so the client system could not log in, causing over 40000 yuan in losses. He was prosecuted for destroying a computer information system (nationwide)

Notes

Account passwords the company gave you do not mean you may still use them after you leave. Logging in with an account beyond the authorized scope counts as intrusion under Prosecutorial Example No. 36; see item 9 (do not test others’ systems without written authorization). In Lü’s case, after logging in he also changed the admin password and deleted data. The procuratorate found the system had not gone down as a result, so it did not charge destroying a computer information system and charged illegal control of a computer information system instead. Losses include necessary costs of restoring data. Under the 2011 joint judicial interpretation, losses of 10000 yuan or more meet “serious circumstances,” and 50000 yuan counts as especially serious. Lü’s losses of over 120000 yuan were found to be especially serious circumstances.

Sources · 3

1. 全国人大 (2020). 刑法（根据刑法修正案（十一）修正，第二百八十五条第二款、第二百八十六条）. jtgl.beijing.gov.cn/jgj/jgxx/flfg/fl/11033925…
2. 最高人民法院、最高人民检察院 (2011). 关于办理危害计算机信息系统安全刑事案件应用法律若干问题的解释（第一、十一条）. ga.sz.gov.cn/ZWGK/ZCFG/ZCJD/content/post_1304…（深圳市公安局转载）；最高人民检察院 (2024). 检察机关「依法惩治网络犯罪 助力网络空间综合治理」典型案例（案例六）. spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbh/202402/t20240223_64450…
3. 最高人民检察院 (2025). 检察机关依法惩治侵害企业数据安全犯罪 服务保障企业创新发展（案例七）. spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbh/202501/t20250124_68067…