Nvidia suffered a cyberattack on February 23. The hacker(s), named Lapsus$, have since threatened the American giant to publish the information gleaned during the operation. In return for his silence, the Lapsus$ requirement is rather original, he wants Nvidia to stop restricting some of its graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining.
Could the cybercriminal be a cryptocurrency miner?
Specifically, the cybercriminal demands the removal of the “Lite Cash Rate” (LHR). This system was implemented by Nvidia in February 2021 for its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, it was extended in May 2021 to the GeForce RTX 3080, 3070 and 3060 Ti models. The LHR limits the hash rate, which determines mining efficiency, by 50%.
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At the time, the company had justified this decision by the high demand for graphics cards, associated with the shortage of chips: it preferred to reserve its products for its historical audience, gamers. Lapsus$ declares, in approximate English according to Ars-Technicawant to ” help the community of miners and gamers by forcing Nvidia to remove the LHR limitations via an update.
To obtain satisfaction Lapsus$ threatens to publish a terabyte of data stolen from Nvidia. He claims that they contain very sensitive data like chipsets, driver source codes, etc. To give credibility to its demands, a standard practice, it has already published a slice of this data.
The American company, for its part, explained that it had ” no evidence of ransomware deployment in NVIDIA environment “. According to Lapsus$, who detailed his package, it’s true. He boasts that he retrieved an employee’s password through his VPN and then used it to gain access to the company’s system. A description consistent with the version of it.
Nvidia has until today to make its decision.
The attack and the theft of data therefore seem quite convincing. The cybercriminal took the opportunity to push his advantage on March 1 with new requirements. He wants Nvidia’s GPU drivers to be available as open source. Good prince, he also admits that some information is the company’s industrial secret and that it is normal for it to be so. Unless he doesn’t get satisfaction.
Lapsus$ has given Nvidia until Friday, March 4 to comply. The chip giant has not indicated whether they intend to fold so far. It is likely that the company will not give in to blackmail. The opposite case would lead to relying on the word of the thief to keep this precious data secret. Risk-taking and uncertainty often deemed unnecessary by cybersecurity professionals.