TSMC Chip Maker confirms its facilities were infected with WannaCry ransomware

TSMC shared further details on the attack and confirmed that its systems were infected with a variant of the infamous WannaCry ransomware.

Early in August, a malware has infected systems at several Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) factories, the plants where Apple produces its devices.

TSMC is the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of chips for tech giants, including Apple and Qualcomm Inc.

Now the company shared further details on the attack and confirmed that its systems were infected with a variant of the infamous WannaCry ransomware that hit 200,000 computers across 150 countries in a matter of hours in May 2017.

WannaCry took advantage of a tool named “Eternal Blue”, originally created by the NSA, which exploited a vulnerability present inside the earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. This tool was soon stolen by a hacking group named “Shadow Brokers” which leaked it to the world in April 2017.

The infection caused one of the most severe disruptions suffered by TSMC as it ramps up chipmaking for Apple Inc.’s next iPhones.

The company contained the problem, but some of the affected plants shut down an entire day of production.

It has been estimated that the overall impact on the revenue of TSMC would be approx $256 million.

Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho confirmed that the infection would have some impact on TSMC’s 2018 profit, but declining to elaborate on further details.

According to the manufacturer, it wasn’t a targeted attack, instead, the systems were infected “when a supplier installed tainted software without a virus scan” to TSMC’s network.

The malware rapidly spread within the company network and infected more than 10,000 machines in some of the company’s production plants, including Tainan, Hsinchu, and Taichung.

“We are surprised and shocked,” TSMC Chief Executive Officer C. C. Wei said, “We have installed tens of thousands of tools before, and this is the first time this happened.”

WannaCry infected many other bit companies, the list of victims includes Boeing, Renault, and Honda,

TSMC confirmed that customers data were not compromised during the attack, it warned customers that shipment delays are expected.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Securi ty Affairs – WannaCry, Troy Hunt)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.