Alibaba has fired four employees in its security department for reprogramming an internal system to steal more than 100 boxes of mooncakes.

The Chinese internet giant had offered a discount to employees who bought the circular treats during the festival. The Hangzhou-based company give out one free box to each employee for the holiday, and sold extras on its site at 59 yuan (about $9) for a box of four, according to the Wall Street Journal. The four employees reportedly hacked into the company's internal sales system and stole 124 boxes of mooncakes. 

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Alibaba said that its decision to fire the four employees is a reminder to its staff that every game has its rules. The company did not identify the four engineers.

One of the fired employees wrote a post explaining that he wanted to buy a box of mooncakes to give to his relatives. Initially, he claims that he was not successful in ordering the mooncake by simply clicking the button on the platform as there were others using self-developed programs to also purchase. He said he hacked the system to place an order.

However, he was not aware that his program had ordered 16 boxes of mooncakes while busy doing other work. He informed the administrative department and asked to cancel the orders, but the company already fired him. The former Alibaba employee said that he never thought of selling the mooncakes to earn money and denied he had moral problems. 

The incident had become a heated debate online, where it has been described as a “tragedy caused by the mooncake.” Some have raised questions about Alibaba’s decision to fire the employees.

TagsAlibaba, mooncake, Mooncake Festival, mooncake sale hacking, Alibaba engineers