A hacking group that
infiltrated Nvidia servers last month is attempting to sell software
that could unlock crypto mining hash rate limiters on the firm’s
flagship graphics cards.

A South American hacking group going by
the name LAPSUS$ claims to have stolen a terabyte of data from Nvidia
servers in late February. The group is now offering software in the form
of a customized driver to unlock limiters the company has put on its
high-end graphics cards.

Nvidia stated that it became aware of the incident on Feb. 23, and stated, according to reports on Mar. 2:

“We
are aware that the threat actor took employee credentials and some
Nvidia proprietary information from our systems and has begun leaking it
online.”

The cybercriminal group has been trying to
extort the California-based company through a Telegram channel. In
addition to leaking sensitive personal data that it pilfered, the group
is offering to bypass limits on Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series graphics cards
to enable higher hash rates for Ethereum mining.

On March 1, PCMag
revealed screenshots from the group’s channel which stated “this leak
contains source code and highly confidential/secret data from various
parts of Nvidia GPU driver, Falcon, LHR, and such.”

LHR refers to
“Lite Hash Rate” which is a limiter the company introduced to de-tune
its GPUs in 2021 to deter crypto miners from snapping them all up,
leaving some for its core market of PC gamers.

The
hacking group is also attempting to hold Nvidia to ransom with demands
that it remove the limiter from all RTX 3000 series cards and make
drivers open-source. It has given the company until March 4 to make a
decision.

Related: Nvidia again limiting crypto mining on its RTX-3060 gaming graphics card

Graphics
card prices and availability has been a bane for gamers for the past
two years, escalating their angst against crypto miners and the industry
in general.

High-end GPUs can cost upwards of $1,800 if in stock,
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 what they cost originally in certain regions.

source link :  https://cointelegraph.com/news/nvidia-hackers-selling-software-unlock-for-graphics-card-crypto-mining-limiters