The ransomware gang LAPSUS$ was reported to be responsible for stealing 1 TB of internal data from Nvidia. Recently it has announced that it sells software that could get around the Ethereum Lite Hash Rate (LHR) limiter. Nvidia set LHR to restrict miners from mining cryptocurrency.
In a public chat on Telegram, the hacking group said they chose to support both gaming and mining communities. They want Nvidia to update GeoForce RTX 30-series firmware that disables LHR limits.
As per PC Mag, LAPSUS$ posted the tool for sale in its public chat room. It says that the tool can bypass the hash rate limits on Nvidia’s RTX 3000 GPUs.
Nvidia wrote in an email statement to CoinDesk that it became aware of a cyberattack affecting its IT infrastructure on February 23. As a result, it protected its network, alerted law enforcement, and hired cybersecurity professionals.
According to Nvidia spokesperson, the tech company knew that its systems were compromised. The hackers stole employee data and Nvidia information and have started to leak it online.
Nvidia encrypted LAPSUS$’ machine used when the hack occurred. However, the hackers say that it is a failed attempt, and they still have the data.
All the company’s activities remain uninterrupted, Nvidia said during the cyberattack. However, the company is still working to investigate the extent and nature of the incident. It did not provide any further details at the time.
Last year, Nvidia launched hash rate limiters for its GeForce GPUs to sustain more products on the market for its core gamers. At a previous Wall Street conference, the tech company revealed that the HRL is added to Ampere-based devices. It deters crypto miners from using them for mining.
Nvidia also launched a crypto-specific mining processor in February 2021, called Cryptocurrency Mining Processors (CMP). However, Nvidia sales quickly declined after initially exceeding estimates by the 4th quarter of 2021. It had reduced to only $24 million. A 77% drop in CMP-related revenue ended January 30, from $105 million the last quarter, has been reported.
After supply shortages caused by crypto miners purchasing stock, Nvidia implemented the hash rate limiter on its graphics cards. Their reason behind this is to make them less appealing to crypto miners and restrict their use to gamers.
Ethereum and other proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies still have GPU mining as an option. On the other hand, Bitcoin miners preferred more powerful ASIC miners.
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