US microchip powerhouse Nvidia hit by cyber attack

Graphics firm Nvidia has been “completely compromised” by a potential cyber attack, it’s been claimed.

That’s according to  The Telegraph (paywalled), which claims that America’s biggest microchip company has seen parts of its business taken offline for two days.

According to the report, what’s believed to be a malicious network intrusion has “completely compromised” Nvidia’s internal systems including email and developer tools, which have been suffering from outages since the middle of the week.

It’s unclear if any data has been stolen or deleted from Nvidia or from its customers, the report states, or if the attack has merely disrupted its systems.

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An Nvidia spokesman told the publication: “We are investigating an incident. We don’t have any additional information to share at this time.”

Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert at the University of Surrey, told The Telegraph that Nvidia likely decided to shut down its internal systems to minimise the risk of further damage.

“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.”

If the report is accurate, the attack will represent at least the second major security breach at Nvidia in the past six months. Last summer a list of hundreds of unannounced games was datamined from its Geforce Now platform – some of which have since been announced.

There is currently no evidence linking Nvidia’s outages to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The US government has told companies to prepare for potential cyberattacks on Western companies in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the US secretary of homeland security, said this week: “We have no information to suggest a specific credible cyber threat against the US homeland, but it is our responsibility to be prepared.”