Following the recent Nvidia hack, it has now been revealed that hackers stole employee credentials and proprietary information and posted it online, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (March 1).
“We are aware that the threat actor took employee credentials and some Nvidia proprietary information from our systems and has begun leaking it online,” the company said in a statement. “Our team is working to analyze that information. We do not anticipate any disruption to our business or our ability to serve our customers as a result of the incident.”
Nvidia said it became aware of the hack as of Feb. 23. A cybercriminal group has been publicly extorting the company on its Telegram channel, and experts, saying the group is called LAPSU$, might have members in South America and Western Europe.
The report from Bloomberg, citing an anonymous source, initially posited that the attack might be a ransomware one. But company officials said there hadn’t been any malicious malware deployed, as was common with those types of things.
Nvidia initially said its business had not been interrupted by the hack, PYMNTS wrote. An earlier report from Telegraph said the company’s systems had been knocked offline for up to two days, in spite of the company’s comments.
Read more: Nvidia Investigates Cyberattack, Reports Business ‘Uninterrupted’
Cyber attacks have been rising due to the pandemic and the confusion over the mass shift to digital payments, which gave hackers a way to profit.
A report from Chainalysis said that ransomware payments were at $602 million as of last year, though the real number was likely higher. The report said that despite the numbers, “anecdotal evidence, plus the fact that ransomware revenue in the first half of 2021 exceeded that of the first half of 2020, suggests to us that 2021 will eventually be revealed to have been an even bigger year for ransomware.”
Ransomware-as-a-Service is one way this has been happening — with ready-made malware tools, hacking has become easier.