Hand over all account access when you leave, and don't delete databases, leave backdoors or change passwords to lock the system, even if the company owes you money

Cost

Free. If the company owes you wages, recover them through labor arbitration and don't act on your own (for labor arbitration see §7). The hard part is holding back from touching the system when you are angry.

What you get

Illegally controlling a computer information system, when the circumstances are serious, carries up to 3 years, with a fine on top or a fine alone, and 3 to 7 years in especially serious cases. Deleting or changing system functions or data so that the system can't run normally carries up to 5 years when the consequences are serious, and 5 years or more when they are especially serious. Official cases: Lü, a senior IT engineer, was dismissed and then logged into the company's shared server with his old administrator account. He changed the password and deleted data and logs, causing a loss of more than 120,000 CNY. The sentence was 3 years, suspended for 5 years, and a fine of 30,000 CNY. Bai, an employee of a software company, deliberately put faulty code into an upgrade program, so that a customer's system could not be logged into. The loss was more than 40,000 CNY, and he was prosecuted for the crime of sabotaging a computer information system (nationwide)

Notes

Account passwords were given to you by the company, which does not mean you can still use them after you leave. Logging in with the old account counts as "illegal control." The loss is counted by the cost of recovering the data, and a few tens of thousands of CNY is enough to open a case.

Evidence grade

A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.

Sources

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）. https://jtgl.beijing.gov.cn/jgj/jgxx/flfg/fl/11033925/index.html
2. 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）. https://www.spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbh/202402/t20240223_644505.shtml
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）. https://www.spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbh/202501/t20250124_680670.shtml

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 11, tip 6. This section describes legal rules, mostly mainland China’s. It is general information, not legal advice; for your own case, talk to a lawyer. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer