Nvidia hackers selling software unlock for graphics card crypto mining limiters
A group of hackers is attempting to offer data to miners that can be used to overcome the power restriction on video cards used for Ethereum mining. According to the data obtained, they claim to have gained access to Nvidia’s servers through hacking. The article explains the details of Nvidia’s hack.
Nvidia said in late February 2022 that the company was investigating a hack that had damaged a segment of the company’s internet activities. However, LAPSUS$ claimed credit for accessing the video card maker’s systems, starting to have stolen more than 1TB of data. Also, the hackers recently offered to sell the data to all interested clients in the group’s public chat channel.
According to PCMag, the attackers sell stolen information as well as a program to unlock Nvidia’s high-performance GPUs. In this way, all power limitations will become lifted to make GPUs available for cryptocurrency mining. The hackers claim to have customized software capable of easily bypassing Nvidia’s “Lite Hash Rate” restriction for its RTX 3000 series graphics cards.
Nvidia imposed “hash rate limiters” for its top GeForce GPUs last year to keep more items available to its core players. The chipmaker stated at a recent Wall Street conference that almost all of its Ampere-based devices will feature a hash rate limitation to prevent crypto mining. Nvidia also released cryptocurrency-specific mining chips last year to further segregate its product lines. According to Nvidia, the CMP-related revenue plummeted 77% to $24 million in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Jan. 30, from $105 million the previous quarter.
Nvidia implemented an Ethereum hashing speed limitation on its flagship models in early 2021 to discourage crypto miners from purchasing up all of their cards and leaving some for gamers. However, the initiative was not efficient, since miners began to purchase up to the previous-generation cards. They are still sufficiently strong for cryptocurrency mining. As a result, there was already a shortage in the market, and GPU prices rose. Hackers have already exposed 19 GB of data, including GPU driver source code and a solution for the hashing rate limits. Furthermore, hackers asked that Nvidia remove the limitation from all RTX 3000 units via a consumer software update. They have threatened to publish further information if Nvidia does not comply. According to the data, some of the details are about next-generation graphics cards codenamed Ada, Hopper, and Blackwell.
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