Nvidia hack appears to be set up to enable crypto theft again

Nvidia crypto

New demands from the hackers behind the attack on Nvidia appear to reveal the true purpose of the attack. Namely, Nvidia must disable a feature that once again allows the manufacturer’s graphics cards to be used to mine crypto currencies.

Last week, news of a ransomware attack on Nvidia began on a positive note, to the extent that such a thing can be positive. Nvidia did not sit back and do nothing, but instead kicked the attackers’ ass by hacking back. A typical case of what goes around comes around.

The positive tone could not be maintained for long. Indeed, the hackers were undeterred by Nvidia and began publicly disseminating the sensitive information they had captured.

Nvidia already confirmed that the criminal group behind the attack is Lapsus$. The group claims to have captured about one terrabyte of sensitive information in the attack. Personal information of Nvidia employees already leaked the cybercriminals, but sensitive information is still being withheld by the collective. This would include schematics and source code for drivers and firmware.

Unlimited crypto life

The cybercriminals appear to be currently in talks with Nvidia about how to proceed. Initially, the attackers were out for ransom, but those demands changed. For example, the collective would like the drivers to become open source, but more strikingly, the criminals want the Lite Hash Rate feature of cards to be deactivated .

Nvidia introduced the Lite Hash Rate feature so that the manufacturer’s graphics cards were no longer deployed by cryptodelers. For other applications, the feature has no impact. Nvidia’s graphics cards were very popular with cryptodelvers, so supply could no longer keep up with demand. Nvidia had had enough of that and stabilized the situation with the Lite Hash Rate feature.