HTC’s Head of Hardware Shen Ye tweeted recently that following Windows 11’s announcement, scalpers have now bought up a huge chunk of TPM 2.0 modules and has been reselling them online for 5x their normal price. All of this happens within 12 hours after Windows 11 has been officially announced.
Thanks to Windows 11, people are scalping TPM2.0 modules as well now.
$24.90 ➡ $99.90 in just 12 hours pic.twitter.com/9TTHC2c47w
— Shen Ye (@shen) June 25, 2021
TPM modules, particularly TPM2.0 modules usually cost around $20 but have seen an immediate spike in pricing in sites like eBay. Windows 11 is now requiring TPM on target installations and despite not officially being available yet, scalpers are quick on the uptake for the potential revenue that this immediate shortage brings.
A Trusted Platform Module or TPM is a device that provides an extra layer of security for PCs that stores encryption keys. Its usually included in motherboard or can be added in via a TPM module. As mentioned, some motherboards will usually have them integrateed on the board via firmware TPM or fTPM under the UEFI BIOS’ security or boot options. Users who may not familiar with this can easily be fooled into buying a TPM2.0 module right now which is being resold for $100. Potential schemes like installing Windows 11’s leaked ISO preview build is expected to rise as well with enterprising computer “technicians” offer to install Windows 11 at a markup, adding on top of the inflated cost of TPM2.0 modules.
