Nvidia was ‘completely compromised’ by a cyber attack for two days this past weekend

Nvidia, the United States’ biggest specialized microchip-making company is looking into an “incident” from over the weekend which left its internal systems “completely compromised” for the past two days, according to a report from Telegraph (paywalled site).

“We are investigating an incident. Our business and commercial activities continue uninterrupted. We are still working to evaluate the nature and scope of the event and don’t have any additional information to share at this time,” said Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez in a statement issued by the company.

University of Surrey’s resident cyber security expert, Alan Woodward, theorized that although Nvidia’s business and commercial activities were able to endure seemingly without a hitch, the fabless semiconductor giant likely closed down its internal systems to mitigate the risk of any further malicious activity.

“The ultimate concern is that somebody may have put something in one of the software updates,” Dr Woodward said.

“They’ll be going through trying to make sure to see if there’s any indication that anything has been changed in their software that they then shipped to their clients.”

Nvidia

Nvidia has reported that no data has been pilfered or deleted and it is unclear at this time if there is any connection between the fact that Nvidia was ‘completely compromised’ by a cyber attack for two days this past weekend and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, where the former country has been known to employ malicious cybersecurity attacks as part of its offensive.

Update: Bloomberg has further reported that a “person familiar with the incident” has categorized the incident as a “minor ransomware attack.” The United States has made it clear however that any attacks from Russia on US-companies such as Nvidia will not be done with impunity.

“If Russia pursues cyberattacks against our companies,” President Biden said in his address on Thursday, “our critical infrastructure, we’re prepared to respond.”

What do you think of the fact that Nvidia was ‘completely compromised’ by a cyber attack for two days this past weekend? Do you think the cybsecurity attacks had any affiliation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Let us know in the comments.