Nvidia Hackers Reveal More Info Including Details on Some of the Files They Have!
Last week information began to appear online suggesting that Nvidia was the latest tech giant to fall victim to a successful data breach. While Nvidia still hasn’t yet officially confirmed this (beyond a vague statement saying that ‘an incident is being investigated) it always seemed pretty clear that with the hackers claiming they’d successfully obtained over 1TB of data, there was very likely something pretty sensitive among it.
Well, following a report via Videocardz, the group responsible for the data breach has issued a number of subsequent posts not only confirming that their hack was indeed successful, but more so, they’ve suggested that they currently possess more than a few highly important documents!
Nvidia Hackers Confirm Sensitive Files Snagged!
Within the posts, the hackers claim that they successfully had access to Nvidia’s internal servers for around a week (a compromised email account is potentially believed to be the source). During that time, they again confirm that around 1TB of data was stolen including, but not limited to:
- Technical schematics
- Driver information
- Firmware
They also confirm that while Nvidia has yet to get in touch with them regarding the ransom (more on this shortly) the tech giants’ little attempt at some hacking counter-espionage failed.
What Do They Want?
Well, this is where things get interesting. According to their posts, it would appear that money isn’t the key motivation here. Well, I’m sure they are after some cash to not share the information they have obtained. The key focus, however, seemingly boils down to the LHR (lite hash rate) anti-mining revisions placed on the 30XX series of graphics cards. Put simply, they want Nvidia to provide a public firmware update that completely removes all the restrictions.
In this regard though, I must admit that their comments on this subject have made me question some of their motives. While they cite that the hack was motivated as a positive move for both gamers and miners, to date, I have never heard a single indication or report suggesting that the gaming performance of LHR revised GPUs was any notably different to that of their (where applicable) original base models. – And, let’s face it, removing the LHR restrictions, even in this climate of a likely temporary downturn in the crypto market, will do nothing to put more 30XX GPUs in gamers’ hands.
It almost feels like something of an afterthought. You know, spreading a little misinformation in the hope of gaining some support from the hardware community. For me though, I don’t care about LHR one way or the other. All I want is more graphics cards available at something representative of their official MSRPs.
With the group having apparently already released some of the data, however, I do still largely suspect that they’re hoping Nvidia’s going to be in touch to make a financial offer. – Will they do it though? Well, based on other hacking incidents in the past, we’d suspect not. It’ll be interesting to see how this one develops though!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
