What happened
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA -3.33%) had jumped 2.4% at 11:15 a.m. ET on Wednesday. The most obvious catalyst was a hack of the company's data and, in response, Nvidia's own hack of the offending party.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
As multiple news agencies have reported, Nvidia -- America's largest semiconductor stock by market capitalization -- was hacked last week by parties unknown. The immediate effect was to cause outages in the company's email systems and developer tools, Britain's The Telegraph reported.
At first, it was unclear if any data has been stolen or deleted from Nvidia or from its customers. Early this week, however, there were reports that data had been stolen -- as much as a terabyte's worth. But in a surprising twist, it was also reported that Nvidia had responded by conducting a "hack back" -- a counterassault in which it gained access to the hackers' own servers and encrypted them, locking them to deny access to the stolen data.
The hackers, a group known as LAPSU$, then reportedly stated that, yes, Nvidia managed to lock their servers, but that LAPSU$ had first made backup copies.
Now what
In the latest turn, BNN Bloomberg reported last night that the hackers seem to have been telling the truth. The news site quoted an Nvidia statement that said, "We are aware that the threat actor took employee credentials and some Nvidia proprietary information from our systems and has begun leaking it online."
But Nvidia has reviewed the leaked data and does "not anticipate any disruption to our business or our ability to serve our customers as a result of the incident." Bloomberg also reports that no malware was installed on Nvidia's servers during the attack. Rather, the attackers simply stole some data (and apparently nothing too important) and are now publicizing it.
All things considered, this still looks a black eye for Nvidia because it wasn't able to keep its data secure in the first place. But the fact that no great damage was done -- and the good publicity the company will get from immediately fighting back with its own hack -- seem to outweigh the negative publicity. And it's sending Nvidia stock higher today.
