How This Ethereum Mining Bypass For Nvidia GPUs Came On Sale

Per a report from PcMag, a group of hackers is attempting to sell information that will enable users to unlock the Ethereum mining limiter on Nvidia GPUs. The bad actors allegedly stole close to 1 terabyte (TB) of data from the tech company in a ransomware attack.

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The hackers are allegedly part of an organization called LAPSUS$. Via a public chat room, the bad actors apparently started offering the bypass software to any potential buyers.

Per the report, the software is a customized driver that “easily” unlocks the Ethereum mining capabilities or Lite Hash Rate (LHR) for the RTX 3000 GPU series manufactured by Nvidia. PcMag quoted LAPSUS$, the group offered potential clients the following:

If someone buy us the LHR, we will provide ways to [mess with] LHR without flashing anything. Without flashing = big money for any miner developer.

LAPSUS$ jumped into the spotlight back in February, several reports claimed Nvidia investigated the previously mentioned ransomware attack as the hackers managed to take the company offline for two days. Nvidia was able to keep on with its business and commercial activities, but apparently lost data to the group.

In addition to the Ethereum mining bypass, the hackers could leak the information stolen from the company to the dark web. Before that happens, they could be looking at making a profit.

In retaliation to the attack, Nvidia responded by trying to encrypt one of the computers used to access their confidential information. However, the hackers stated via their public chat on Telegram that the company “failed”.

BTW (By the way) Nvidia tried but failed, we have all the data.

The hackers also claimed to have documentation, and other private data potentially related to the company’s commercial activities.

Nvidia And Its Troublesome History With Ethereum Mining

LAPSUS$ said to have infiltrated Nvidia’s systems for over a week, and allegedly were able to become “administrators of a lot of systems”. In addition to the Ethereum mining bypass drivers, they might have taken firmware, schematics, and other “important stuff”. The hackers wrote:

We decided to help mining and gaming community, we want Nvidia to push an update for all 30 series firmware that remove every LHR limitations otherwise we will leak hw folder. If they remove the LHR we will forget about hw folder (…).

The group of hackers appears to still be waiting on Nvidia to collaborate and give them something in return for not releasing the company’s private information. In the meantime, they could continue selling the Ethereum mining bypass and other sensitive information.

PCMag claims LAPSUS$ is selling these alleged customized drivers only days after another group offered a bypass for ETH mining with Nvidia GPUs. Ultimately, the software was identified as Trojan malware. Remains to be seen if the latest offered will be of a similar nature.

As Bitcoinist reported recently, other entities claimed to have lifted Nvidia’s GPUs Lite Hash Rate (LHR) limiter unlocking 100% of its power for crypto mining. However, the process appears unsafe at least for the less tech-savvy users.

Related Reading | Nvidia’s LHR Effort To Stop Ethereum Miners Was A Failure, Reveals Report

At the time of writing, ETH’s price trades at $2,945 with a 5% profit on the daily chart.