Nvidia makes mining more complicated with its graphics cards. Now, miners say they have found a trick to bypass this restriction. However, instead of a simple solution, they primarily encountered nasty malware.
What is this restriction? Nvidia has implemented a mining restriction on the new graphics cards. This restriction is supposed to lower the performance when mining, causing miners to lose interest in the graphics cards. Nvidia would rather sell its special mining graphics card.
However, it has been known for a while that the mining restriction by Nvidia is ridiculed. Nevertheless, this restriction seems to annoy enough users, so that some are even willing to bypass it with software. And when free software promises a higher yield from the graphics card, who can say “No”?
But this could now become a downfall for some miners. A YouTuber has shown that this software is contaminated with malware.
Software for mining restriction contaminates your PC with malware
What kind of software is this? The software is said to be an alternative driver version of Nvidia’s graphics card driver. This will bypass the mining restriction at the software level, allowing you to theoretically use the maximum hash rate for mining again.
The higher the hash rate, the better the yield when mining. For security reasons, we will not link to the software here.
What exactly is the problem with the software? A YouTuber tested and presented the software in a one-and-a-half-hour video (via youtube.com).
The problem is that the software not only alters the BIOS of the graphics card but also infects the powershell.exe of Windows.
The PowerShell in Windows is similar to a command line. With PowerShell, both simple commands and complex mechanisms can be triggered. So you can imagine what a contaminated PowerShell could be capable of.
As a small bonus, the installer puts your “C:” partition, where your operating system is installed, on the whitelist of Windows Defender. The Windows Defender no longer checks the system partition and what goes on there. Therefore, the malware can wreak havoc without being monitored.
What can you do about it? Basically, you should always use your common sense when downloading software from the internet. Also, checking dubious software for malware can save your computer and your data. For example, the YouTuber showed that the supposed aid software for miners triggered 17 antivirus programs on the online tool “VirusTotal”.
AMD tries to make graphics cards unattractive for miners with low video memory
Nvidia’s direct competitor had a different idea to make graphics cards unattractive for miners. AMD introduced its RX 6500 XT as a hope for gamers. AMD deliberately limited the video memory of the graphics card to 4 GB. That is so little that it is hardly profitable for miners to collect cryptocurrencies with such a graphics card.
However, the graphics card did not really convince anyone. You can read a detailed report on the situation and the tests here on MeinMMO:
The tests of the Radeon RX 6500 XT show how broken the graphics card market is
