AMD published a blog post (opens in new tab) explaining that the theft occurred in December 2019 by someone claiming to have test files to “a subset of our current and future graphics products,” and that some of them were even posted online to GitHub before being taken down.
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The statement continues, “While we are aware the perpetrator has additional files that have not been made public, we believe the stolen graphics IP is not core to the competitiveness or security of our graphics products. We are not aware of the perpetrator possessing any other AMD IP.” AMD noted that there is an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter. The stolen data was found in a hacked computer and includes source code for AMD’s Navi and Arden GPUs, according to a report from TorrentFreak. The latter is reportedly used in the Xbox Series X. The hacker threatened to dump the rest of the code online if their demands aren’t met. AMD issued multiple DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices (opens in new tab) on Github, where the data was being held. The data breach is quite concerning despite AMD claiming the data isn’t core to security. You can read the details of the DMCA request on GitHub (opens in new tab). Considering that AMD specs are in both the Xbox Series X and the PS5, it’s possible that PlayStation might also be at risk. I imagine we’ll know more sooner or later, depending how the issue is resolved.
