A ransomware gang reportedly hacked Nvidia a few days ago. The attackers claimed to have stolen data. Nvidia subsequently hacked the hackers itself.
Nvidia was recently victimized by Lapsu$: a hacker group from South America. The criminal gang had gained access to Nvidia’s mail server. The thieves made off with 1 TB of Nvidia’s data. The hackers themselves claim they obtained sensitive data, but the actual content of the loot is unclear.
Counterhack
Nvidia responded to the attack as you would hope from a company full of IT and software experts led by a man rarely seen without a leather jacket: the company hacked back computers from the criminals themselves and encrypted the stolen files. The hackers themselves confirm this with misplaced indignation. Screenshots are circulating on Twitter to substantiate Nvidia’s action.
The criminals indicate that the action was in vain: they allegedly have backups of the stolen data. Lapsu$ now hopes to blackmail Nvidia into paying a ransom. In for a certain amount, the data would remain secret. The hackers say they obtained password information from employees as well as data on RTX GPUs. CEO Jensen Huang’s Wild West mentality regarding the attack does not seem to suggest that Nvidia intends to come up with a lot of pennies.