Ransomware Gang Demands Nvidia Lite Lift Hash Rate Restriction
Ransomware gang Lapsus$ claims to have accessed Nvidia’s servers for a week, siphoning away 1TB of data related to drivers and firmware. The group is demanding an end to the Lite Hash Rate restrictions of Nvidia cards.
Lapsus$ claims it broke into Nvidia systems and had admin access to several servers for a week. In doing so, the group managed to obtain 1TB of data, including drivers, firmwares, documentation, SDKs and ‘everything about Falcon’. Falcon is the code name for FAst Logic CONtroller, the embedded security microcontroller that Nvidia has built into GPUs for years. “We know what’s valuable in Nvidia, please contact us,” the Lapsus$ appeal reads.
The group has released a compressed file that would contain source code of Nvidia’s GPU driver, among other things. It concerns a 19GB file and the release of a new file would follow shortly. At the time of writing, it is not known whether the first part of the released data does indeed contain sensitive Nvidia data. VideoCardz, among others, writes about the hacking claims.
The group reports that it requires Nvidia to update the firmware of the RTX 30 series to remove the LHR limitations. “If they remove the LHR, we’ll forget the hardware map,” said Lapsus$. Nvidia would have already submitted an abuse report to Amazon AWS, where the file was stored. Lapsus$ itself would already offer an LHR v2 tool for sale to undo the mining limitations of the GA102 and GA104 GPUs. An earlier unlocker was found to contain malware.
Nvidia has not yet responded to the group’s claims. Last week, the company reported to CRN, among others, that it was still investigating claims about a hack. Lapsus$ then reported on its Telegram channel that Nvidia had attempted to hack back the group to place ransomware itself. Nvidia, or a security company that hired the chipmaker, would have penetrated a Lapsus$ virtual machine thanks to mobile device management. The stolen data would have been encrypted, but Lapsus$ claimed to have a backup.
The Nvidia RTX LHR v2 Unlocker contained malware.