It is rare to see a cyber attacker stray from the standard template: demand a bitcoin payment in exchange for decrypting a victim’s systems or not revealing their stolen data. Instead of seeking a cryptocurrency ransom, the attackers who claimed to have stolen one terabyte of data from Nvidia urged that the firm make it easier to mine bitcoins using its famous graphics cards. Nvidia produces graphics processing units, or GPUs, for computer games. However, bitcoin miners utilise them faster than standard computer central processing units or CPUs. Nvidia has been at the centre of the conflict as one of the only tech companies able to make cryptocurrency mining more complex and lower energy costs and unlawful applications. Ethereum cryptocurrency miners have driven up demand for Nvidia GeForce GPUs, making them difficult to obtain for other uses like gaming or graphics processing. They deliberately design their GPUs to be less efficient at the precise processes necessary to mine Ethereum. The new GPUs came out in February 2021.
Non-miners also had difficulty purchasing Nvidia graphics cards, causing more issues for the corporation. Furthermore, the computational operations required to mine cryptocurrencies are incredibly power-intensive. The choice by Nvidia to design their graphics cards to be less beneficial for bitcoin mining was a positive one for the firm and us all. Sadly, Nvidia mistakenly released a code that allowed consumers to bypass the new GPU restrictions in March 2021. Several miners and media caught the error that month. Last year, the corporation purposely added a new product designed for Ethereum mining to its line-up, undermining its efforts to prevent cryptocurrency mining. AMD, Nvidia’s primary graphics card competition, has said it will not modify its CPUs to prevent bitcoin mining.
Computing power is required to generate more Bitcoin and other decentralised currencies like Ethereum. Because there is no central authority governing how many Bitcoins exist, technical limits embedded into their source code prevent anybody from manufacturing an endless amount of them. For example, there are only 21 million Bitcoins overall, approximately 19 million mined. The name “mining” refers to the fact that computers must perform computational chores before receiving Bitcoins, much as genuine miners must work hard to remove minerals from the earth.
As we near the 21 million limits, computers must do more computational work to receive smaller and smaller bitcoins. So miners started using Nvidia and AMD GPUs instead of slower CPUs to execute more computations faster. Operating those machines and keeping them cool enough to avoid overheating takes much energy, especially when popular cryptocurrencies are worth much money and have already been mined heavily.
Both Nvidia and AMD dominate the GPU market, albeit Nvidia’s are far more popular. By limiting the computing operations used to mine popular cryptocurrencies, these corporations might inflict an enormous blow to cryptocurrency speculators than any government or other body. Nvidia has previously designed these types of technological limits. We also know that those technical limits affect people’s capacity to mine cryptocurrency. Otherwise, why would the Nvidia hackers demand that Nvidia remove the security features built into their graphics cards in 2021?
In this situation, the hacking organisation Lapsus$, which is currently exposing the stolen data online, is a reminder of just who is most invested in being able to mine bitcoins. Encouragingly, Nvidia has claimed it does not anticipate any business disruption due to the incident. It is hard to fathom why any organisation would want to expose itself to this kind of attack by trying to prevent bitcoin mining with better-designed technologies. Nvidia’s mining limits last year may have helped. However, corporations may need more incentives—or pressure—from regulators to embrace the risks associated with angering cryptocurrency-fueled crooks.
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