TSMC shut down production lines due to computer virus

[HEXUS]

But everything should be back to normal by now.

Read more.

[philehidiot]

Right, so who was looking at naughty pics on the fab then?

[peterb]

So to summarise...

Computer virus shuts down production facilities on Friday evening. By Saturday evening, everything was almost back to normal!

Must be a slow news week at Bloomberg!

However, taking tongue out of cheek, any disruption in production facilities at a fabrication plant can have severe repercussions, and it isn't surprising that TSMC were reticent about the financial consequences,

Which makes one wander why they are using software that is virus prone, and if they had to use it, why they didn't have better protection in place, or a business continuity plan that allows for that eventuality?

[mtyson]

UPDATE:

The FT reports (paywall) that there will be a $255m hit to TSMC's revenue and delays to chip shipments due to the virus incident.
https://www.ft.com/content/2fe5e096-...2-5946bae86e6d

[shaithis]

UPDATE:

The FT reports (paywall) that there will be a $255m hit to TSMC's revenue and delays to chip shipments due to the virus incident.
https://www.ft.com/content/2fe5e096-...2-5946bae86e6d

Expensive mis-click

[peterb]

Expensive mis-click

Indeed - maybe they'll install some AV applications - or use less vulnerable software!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Intel must have had a very happy weekend!!

[Corky34]

Why were they using Windows on a fabrication machine.

Who forgot to renew their AV subscription.

It happens to the best of us...this is such ripe ground for puns, jokes, and poking fun at.

[DanceswithUnix]

Who forgot to renew their AV subscription.

Maybe their systems are running XP and aren't supported by their AV any more

I've seen trouble spread around a factory on a USB stick more than once, you don't need iffy websites involved. My factory systems always run Linux, not because it is more secure but because people don't tend to mess with it and "just use it to do this for a minute, no-one will mind".

[Tabbykatze]

We have several manufacturing clients whose manufacturing and fabrication systems for the electrical and manufacturing components were built and deployed over 10 years ago. They provide components to the military, Bugatti, Ford, Mclaren and others and every piece of machinery is run by XP systems. They also pay the $5 million a year to Microsoft for extended XP security patch support.

I was actually flying to visit them to upgrade their Firewall and assist with a network upgrade/shakeup on that fateful day...Friday 12th May. The news broke as the plane left the airport and i spent 3 hours worried i was about to walk into our Customer and it being WW3.

Luckily, their users weren't being idiots that day, they blocked all downloads temporarily until they updated all 450 XP machines. There was evidence that a few machines had early infection signs but were stamped out by their highly efficient IT team killing port 445 on all network switches. The only thing that prevented WannaCry getting into the fab network was an network separation that only allowed only specific port sets of which 445 was not one.

The reason they still have XP is because no one is updating the fab software anymore, they will basically have to do it all in house or acquire retainer services of a developer to update the software to win7/10.

What I'm getting at is that fab networks are so high value per minute that any disruption or issues costs bug bucks (as exampled here in the article). Try telling a bean counter that you need to spend a few 100 million to update all the software that could disrupt the entire manufacturing process. Their response will be "it's working now? Why? Gtfo". Then the bean counter will blame the IT security team for something they tried to resolve for a couple of hundred mil and instead because it wasn't sorted and they have lost a couple of hundred mil.

We, and our AV vendor of choice, have pretty much a standing order that any environments containing XP or Server 2003 are insecure and we will officially state with the customer acceptance signature that if it's networked, we and the vendor take no responsibility for the health of the business.

TSMC is a massive fab business, I'm keeping my foil hat at a kilter because the amount of money they'd be throwing at netsec would be more than most business' yearly revenue. My feet are firmly planted in the suspicious camp.

[mtyson]

Update 2:

"The fab tools, automated handling systems and other equipment infected, all run unpatched Windows 7" said company CEO CC Wei!

[Tabbykatze]

Update 2:

"The fab tools, automated handling systems and other equipment infected, all run unpatched Windows 7" said company CEO CC Wei!

Surprised they're Win7 but not surprised they're unpatched