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Bloomberg
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. blamed a crippling cyber-virus outbreak on a variant of the 2017 WannaCry ransomware, outlining how it shut several plants just as the company ramps up
chipmaking for Apple Inc.’s next iPhones.
Chief Executive Officer C. C. Wei said full operations have resumed and that the malware would reduce revenue this quarter by no more than 2 percent, down from an earlier estimate of roughly 3 percent. The company earlier warned of delayed shipments as a consequence of the infection, which arose during software installation then spread swiftly throughout its network. The virus hit facilities in Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan, he added.
The incident underscores the global nature of the technology supply chain, in which companies like Apple and Qualcomm Inc. depend on hundreds of suppliers around the world. This is the first time a virus had brought down a TSMC facility, turning Taiwan’s largest company into the latest victim of cybercrime. Its shares dipped less than 1 percent on Monday.
Wei said the company was “shocked†and is now overhauling its installation procedures after encountering a virus more complex than initially thought. He declined to elaborate on the impact to its customers.
WannaCry spread across the globe in May 2017, rolling through corporations from FedEx Corp. to French carmaker Renault SA and infiltrating Russia’s interior ministry
as well as British hospitals. Thought to have emanated from North Korea, it gave victims 72 hours to pay $300 in bitcoin or cough up twice as much, threatening a permanent loss of data. Wei said the variant that infected TSMC didn’t demand a ransom.
The rogue code was ultimately estimated to have infected hundreds of thousands of computers that run Microsoft’s Windows, in thousands of companies in about 150 countries.