Hackers Try to Sell Mining Bypass for Nvidia GPUs for $1 Million

pcmag.com:

It's never a good (or ethical) idea to buy stolen data from hackers. For one, the information itself could be fake or booby-trapped with malware. 

Nevertheless, the cybercriminals behind the Nvidia breach are still hoping to sell off some of the data they stole from the company. On Wednesday, the group offered a software tool to unlock the Ethereum mining limitation on Nvidia’s RTX 3000 graphics cards for $1 million.

The hacking group, known as LAPSUS$, claims the tool can bypass Nvidia’s Lite Hash Rate limiter without “flashing” or updating the firmware on an RTX 3000 GPU. “Without flashing = big money for any miner developer,” the group said earlier this week, when it first dangled the Ethereum mining bypass in a public chat room. 

The bypass means a cryptocurrency miner could raise the Ethereum mining rate on an RTX 3000 product from the default 50% to 100%. Last year, Nvidia began installing the limitation across most RTX 3000 GPUs in an effort to stop miners from buying them up. 

However, it’s doubtful anyone will pay $1 million for this. The mining community has already come up with ways to raise the mining limit on affected Nvidia GPUs from 50% to 70%. At the same time, Ethereum is preparing to phase out GPU-based mining, probably later this year. Hence, it makes more economic sense for a user to mine under the current status quo, rather than hand over $1 million for additional profits that may never be realized. 

LAPSUS$ has also not demoed the Ethereum mining bypass, so it’s unclear if the software tool even works. Still, the group is probably willing to negotiate the $1 million price down. 

The larger issue is that LAPSUS$ is threatening to release more confidential information stolen from Nvidia after already