Nvidia suffered a major attack at the hands of ransomware group Lapsus$, an attack CEO Jensen Huang is calling a “wake-up call.”
Lapsus$ is a somewhat different type of ransomware gang. Rather than gaining access and delivering a ransomware payload that encrypts a target’s systems, Lapsus$ tries to gain access to source code repositories, stealing code and demanding a ransom to not release it to the public.
Lapsus$ has been on a string of attacks, compromising Microsoft, Samsung, and Nvidia. In the case of the latter, the group made off with GPU source code, demanding the company open source its drivers or see the code released publicly.
According to Yahoo Finance, the hack got Huang’s attention, who was happy it wasn’t worse.
“It was a wake-up call for us,” Huang told Yahoo Finance. “Fortunately, we didn’t lose any customer information and any sensitive information. They got access to source code, which of course we don’t like, but nothing that is harmful to us.”
Ransomware has been on the rise, becoming one of the most popular, and profitable, forms of cybercrime. The CEO of Nvidia calling the Lapsus$ attack a “wake-up call” should serve as a cautionary tale to companies large and small.