A couple of days ago a very tempting software for the world of cryptocurrency mining appeared on GitHub. The name, “Nvidia RTX LHR v2 Unlocker“, says all that is needed for those in the sector, but for the layman: it removes (or so it says) the performance limitation in Ethereum mining (called LHR, or Lite Hash Rate), inserted by NVIDIA in its cards RTX 30 video gaming from 2021 onwards to prevent miners from continuing to buy them, leaving players to fight with absolutely out of market prices and very limited availability.
It just turns out that the software is overloaded with malware – and, of course, it doesn’t do what it promises. Among the many problematic behaviors caused by the application, we highlight:
- Delete files in the Windows folder
- Causes processor usage spikes
- Create files in system folders
- He uses a lot of obfuscation techniques, probably to avoid being detected
- Check for available system drives (technique generally used to infect USB sticks and hard drives)
For the time being, no concrete illegal activity has been proven (eg Spyware, data theft, ransomware, and so on), but the suspicions are too real to be trusted. Below is the video broadcast live by the Red Panda Mining channel showing the negative effects of the software (the highlight comes around & t = 3297s “target =” _ blank “> minute 55).
Lite Hash Rate is technically a software feature, in the sense that it is implemented at the BIOS level of the video card. From a purely theoretical point of view, therefore, it is conceivable to find a system to circumvent it. Of course, Nvidia has no public documentation on how to handle the BIOS of its cards – it’s an area the user should never interact with.
In the crypto world there is a lot of interest in finding a way around Nvidia’s limitation: the demand for cards without LHR is very high – and consequently their price in the secondary market. At this stage, therefore, LHR remains untouched – there are tricks to limit its effects, but mining performance compared to an identical card that does not have it remains significantly lower.
