Chipmaker TSMC Affected by Virus Incident Causing Delays in Product Shipments

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC estimates that the delays caused by having to shutdown the production lines to remove a virus will cost the company 3% of 3Q18 revenue and 1% in gross margins. They expect to recover by Q42018.

This virus outbreak occurred due to misoperation during the software installation process for a new tool, which caused a virus to spread once the tool was connected to the company's computer network, TSMC said. Data integrity and confidential information was not compromised and actions have been taken to close this security gap and further strengthen security measures, it added.
 
This is just bad system design. With billions of dollars on the line, there's no excuse for giving a fab tool the ability to modify software on other fab tools and computers. It should accept commands and report data, and that's all it should be capable of doing.

I won't be surprised if Chinese hackers are behind this tho. China considers the Taiwanese state a foreign invader on Chinese soil, and want it gone.
 
pcgeekesq said:
This is just bad system design. With billions of dollars on the line, there's no excuse for giving a fab tool the ability to modify software on other fab tools and computers. It should accept commands and report data, and that's all it should be capable of doing.

I won't be surprised if Chinese hackers are behind this tho. China considers the Taiwanese state a foreign invader on Chinese soil, and want it gone.
Click to expand...

Usually they have to have at least one of the "tool" PC connected to some network for communicating what wafers should be runing what jobs and they send over some other key info often passed as txt files + whatever else depending on what the tool is. It obviously gets very complicated, but companies are still trying to figure out good containment for wannacry variants on these systems, let alone whatever is next. Often these key systems are on "closed" partitioned networks and aren't updated after they are proven to accomplish whatever they are suppose to do. But if you hit the system that is specifying what runs what... you are sort of stuck till you rebuild the entire thing/bring each tool back up. The last thing these fabs want is continued SW changes that might change some unknown quanty (say a slight delay that causes the stop command for a key dep rate to be off by a few ms) that could cause millions of $$ in wafer losses. Course then something like this comes up and the question of patching your SW seems more reasonable ;-)
 
pcgeekesq said:
This is just bad system design. With billions of dollars on the line, there's no excuse for giving a fab tool the ability to modify software on other fab tools and computers. It should accept commands and report data, and that's all it should be capable of doing.

I won't be surprised if Chinese hackers are behind this tho. China considers the Taiwanese state a foreign invader on Chinese soil, and want it gone.
Click to expand...
Even for a tech company IT is a after though!
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Did they call the phone # that might have come up on the screen and get connected with a "Microsoft" rep who remoted into the machine(s)? :p:p
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I've been getting that call at least 3 times a week and it cracks me up HARD every single time!

"Please have the person using windows operating system call number to talk to system administrator..."

One of these days I think I'll call 'em back just to see what they say, mebbe even set up a honey-pot to watch what they do!

Sorry, your comment gave me a big grin when I needed it. Thanks. :)
 
digitalwanderer said:
I've been getting that call at least 3 times a week and it cracks me up HARD every single time!

"Please have the person using windows operating system call number to talk to system administrator..."

One of these days I think I'll call 'em back just to see what they say, mebbe even set up a honey-pot to watch what they do!

Sorry, your comment gave me a big grin when I needed it. Thanks. :)
Click to expand...


after spending some time trying to get them connected.. and having issues.. ask them..


oh.. do i need to be connected to the internet on this computer??
 
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