Hacker group Lapsus claims to have obtained confidential information about Nvidia’s crypto-mining selector – Light Hash Rate. Nvidia introduced it in the GeForce RTX 30 series of graphics cards to limit the performance of these devices in transaction processing, including in the Ethereum blockchain network.

This was an unfair treatment for people and companies who bought cards to process cryptocurrency transactions.

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A group of hackers previously claimed that they would provide access to the firmware and data that lifted the Nvidia restrictions. Now, in turn, she says she’s going to sell this tool — and she wants $1 million for it.

Nvidia’s LHR reduces mining capabilities by an average of 50%, and a workaround suggested by hackers will restore full performance of graphics cards when processing cryptocurrencies.

Where do these problems come from?

Nvidia has introduced restrictions that in no way disrupt the work of the “miners”. The reason is that the graphics cards are not well available and provide high profit for miners. It pays them to buy equipment even when it’s three or four times more expensive than the manufacturer expects, because they’ll do whatever they want anyway. They treat graphics cards as a kind of money-making tool, and buying is an investment.

See: NFT

Tech enthusiasts and gamers had to spend a lot on gear if they wanted to buy the best cards. And this is for equipment that they did not plan to use for cryptocurrency mining, but, for example, to play the latest and most demanding games. This situation caused a wave of criticism and Nvidia tried to make graphics cards less attractive to “miners”.

The limitations introduced by Nvidia were and still are significant, but GeForce cards still make money, for example from processing transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. And GeForce deliverables? These are still cramped and the cards themselves are still expensive. Some models are cheaper, but they are still on average twice the suggested retail price.

Hackers who argue that they have a suitable solution want to sell it primarily to companies that specialize in mining. Price: million dollars

However, this appears to be very short-sighted. First of all, there are tools on the market that actually remove the limits imposed by Nvidia in part and are available for free. Secondly, this year Ethereum will switch to the Proof of Stake algorithm, which will make the use of graphics cards in online transactions unprofitable. So it doesn’t seem like any company would be inclined to do so.

In addition, Lapsus is requesting that Nvidia begin developing and sharing GPU drivers for all systems (Windows, Linux, macOS) in the spirit of open source. If the company doesn’t respond by Friday, hackers are said to have released a lot of confidential information from Nvidia, including the RTX 3090 Ti and other upcoming releases.

So far, Nvidia has announced that it is aware of the cyber attack. It added that this would not affect business and would not hinder customer service.

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