Hackers Break Nvidia Servers, Get Hash Rate Unlock Keys Ready For Sale

LAPSUS$ claimed to have stolen a terabyte of data from Nvidia's servers in late February. (photo: twitter @Nvidia)

JAKARTA – A hacker group that hacked into Nvidia's servers last month has tried to sell software that could unlock crypto mining hash rate limiters on the company's flagship graphics card.

A South American hacking group called LAPSUS$ claimed to have stolen a terabyte of data from Nvidia's servers in late February. The group now offers software in the form of customized drivers to bypass the barriers the company has installed on high-end graphics cards.

Nvidia stated that they were aware of the incident on February 23, and reported it on March 2.

"We are aware that the threat actors took employee credentials and some Nvidia proprietary information from our systems and have started leaking them online," a source at Nvidia said as quoted by Cointelegraph.

Cybercriminal groups have tried to extort the California-based company via Telegram channels. In addition to leaking the stolen sensitive personal data, the group also offered to bypass the limit on Nvidia's RTX 3000 series graphics cards allowing higher hash rates for Ethereum mining.

On March 1st, PCMag revealed a screenshot from the group channel stating "this leak contains source code and top-secret/secret data from various parts of Nvidia, Falcon, LHR GPU drivers and such."

The LHR refers to the “Lite Hash Rate” which is a limiter the company is introducing to disable its GPUs in 2021 to prevent crypto miners from taking it all away, leaving some for the core market of PC gamers.

The hacker group is also trying to hold Nvidia for ransom with demands to remove the restrictions from all RTX 3000 series cards and make the drivers open-source. The company gave until March 4 to make a decision.

The price and availability of graphics cards has become the bane of gamers for the past two years, increasing their anxiety about crypto miners and the industry in general.

High-end GPUs can cost upwards of $1,800 if available, and lower-spec models are very hard to come by leading to the emergence of a used card market where prices for older graphics cards often exceed their original prices in the region. certain.