A driver update only works if the miners download the updated driver -- which they obviously wouldn't. That's the root of the problem. Once a driver -- any driver -- gets into the wild that works with full mining performance, like the 470.05 accidental 'leak,' you can't forcibly undo the damage without breaking all kinds of warranties and security permissions. If my GPU force-updated its VBIOS and failed, or even if it worked but it reduced performance, that's a class action lawsuit in a heartbeat.
So, in order of best to worst:
- Silicon mitigations: most secure but longest to get to market
- Firmware updates: reasonably secure but it needs to lock out any flashing of older firmware, which can be done but is weaker than silicon level updates
- Updated drivers: doesn't do jack squat unless a miner is particularly stupid and decides to install new drivers that reduce performance
I'll go a step further, though. I don't think Nvidia really wants to lock out miners. What it probably wants more than anything is to sell CMP products direct to miners at higher prices with lower warranties. Which means it goes back to maybe some silicon stuff, mostly firmware, and hopefully the firmware / drivers that mine fast on CMP cards can't be hacked to work on GeForce cards. I still think miners were already running RTX 3060 at full performance before the 470.05 leak. All you have to do is look at launch prices of $900 to know miners were buying them, and probably had ways around the lock. The mining lock mostly goes after gamers mining in their spare cycles, not the big mining firms.