Thousands Of Nvidia Employee Passwords Have Been Leaked Online As The Hackers Ransom Payment Deadline Looms

Thousands of Nvidia employee passwords have been leaked online as the hackers’ ransom payment deadline looms

Unless chipmaker Nvidia complies with the ransomware group's increasingly bizarre demands, the ransomware group, which claims to have stolen a terabyte of data from the company, will release the company's "most closely-guarded secrets" today.

The Lapsus$ ransomware, which claimed responsibility for the data breach for the first time just a few days ago, has already begun releasing information. According to the data breach monitoring website Have I Been Pwned, the hackers stole the credentials of over 71,000 Nvidia employees during the attack. A number of Nvidia email addresses that TechCrunch is aware of appeared to have been compromised, according to our investigations. Email addresses and Windows password hashes are among the information contained in the data, according to HIBP, "many of which were later cracked and distributed within the hacking community."

The company previously confirmed that employee credentials were stolen in the attack, but would not say whether it notified affected employees or compelled them to change their passwords. However, even as the implications of the incident grow, and the hacking group's deadline draws closer, Nvidia's incident response page has remained unchanged since Tuesday.

If Nvidia does not comply with the group's unusual demands, the hackers have threatened to release the company's trade secrets, which include schematics, source code, and information on recent Nvidia graphics chips, including the as-yet-unannounced RTX 3090 Ti. The group urged Nvidia to discontinue the contentious Lite Hash Rate (LHR) feature on its RTX 30 series graphics cards, which limits the RTX 30 series graphics cards' Ethereum mining capabilities. The RTX 30 series graphics cards have a Lite Hash Rate (LHR) feature that restricts their Ethereum mining capabilities. It was implemented in early-2021 as a response to the crypto-mining community depleting its supply, making it impossible for gamers to obtain the new graphics cards at the time.

Lapsus$ Telegram group stated, "We want Nvidia to push an update to all 30 series firmware that removes all LHR restrictions; otherwise, we will leak [the hardware] folder," according to the group's description. The impact of LHR mining and gaming is well-known to both of us. "If they delete the LHR, we will lose track of [the] folder..."

Lapsus$ has added another unusual demand to its list this week: it wants Nvidia to make its graphics chip drivers for macOS, Windows, and Linux devices available for free download on the internet. Nvidia was given until today, March 4, to comply with the order.