Source: https://cobaltstrike.net/2022/03/03/lapsus-grouping-to-sell-nvidia-lhr-bypass-tool-for-1-million/
The story of hacking Nvidia is getting more interesting every day. The South American cybercrime group Lapsus$ responsible for the incident now claims that, among other things, it managed to steal confidential information about the NVIDIA Light Hash Rate (LHR) hash rate limiter blocking cryptocurrency mining on GeForce RTX 30 series video cards. At first, the group claimed that it would provide access to software and firmware including LHR, but now it has changed its mind and decided to sell a tool to bypass the limiter for $ 1 million, PCMag writes.
LHR reduces the ability of video cards to generate cryptocurrency by an average of 50%, but according to hackers, their tool will fully restore performance for Ethereum mining. With the help of a hashrate limiter, Nvidia hoped to make its GeForce RTX 30 video cards less attractive to miners buying up video cards to the detriment of the gaming community.
Anyway, $1 million for a tool to bypass LHR is too high a price. Currently, tools are already available that partially restore the performance of Ampere video cards. In addition, even for large-scale mining operations, such an expensive tool is still unprofitable.
It is also reported that Lapsus$ requires Nvidia to open the source code of video card drivers for all major platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS) “from now on and forever.” If the company does not respond by Friday, March 4, hackers threaten to “publish all files concerning silicon, graphics and computer chipsets for all the latest Nvidia graphics cards, including RTX 3090 Ti and future versions.”
Earlier this week, Lapsus$ announced its intention to publish the source code of Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology. In addition, she plans to release information about future Ada, Hopper and Blackwell video cards.