SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
iPhone supplier TSMC shut down factories after virus attack
Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. [(TSMC)] shut down several of its factories last night [Friday] after it its[sic] systems were hit by a computer virus, reports Bloomberg.
TSMC is the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, and supplies components for companies like ADM[sic], Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. The company told Bloomberg that the virus infected a "number of its fabrication tools," but that the "degree of infection varies" from factory to factory. Several have resumed their operations, but others won't come back online until tomorrow. The company indicated that its factories weren't infected by a hacker.
Update: TSMC says third-quarter revenue hit by computer virus
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
so we cannot assume that the whatever computer controlling the chip making machine has already
implemented spectre and meltdown?
overall having a computer running windows on foreign territory to control a chip manufacturing machine, which will then
most probably be infected by some windows version is totally scary.
everybody should be scared! all your business will belong to them!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @03:38PM (1 child)
The theoretical implications are scary. Infecting chip fabrication equipment, to alter the design of certain chips covertly during their manufacture.
But really. The sophistication of such an attack; the incredible planning, development and testing of such a thing. The development cost. Only a nation state could do such a thing -- if that is even the goal.
Would a competitor be sufficiently motivated to expend the resources on such an attack? There are probably a lot better ways to gain competitive advantage from a commercial standpoint. Lobbyists. Firebombings and arson. Moles, like Elop. Or embracing and extending. Cutting off a competitor's supply sources. Etc.
If you're a monopolist you can use predatory pricing. This was first mastered by IBM, and later copied by Microsoft. A competitor comes out with a computer better than your low end systems. You introduce a new system that competes with it, but at a significantly lower price. Except . . . the configuration is such that it is just barely useful without an upgrade. Soon that upgrade will be needed, like an additional 4K of core memory, and it will cost very handsomely indeed. Because you control the design of your cpu cabinets, which controller subsystems go where, and how memory interfaces work, you are the only source of this vastly expensive memory upgrade. Now you've made your handsome IBM style profit on the system, after suckering the customer into buying it -- and putting your competitor out of business.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 06 2018, @03:46PM
It also occurs to me that no nation state would do such a thing because there simply is No Such Agency that would be interested in trying to compromise the very design of chips during manufacture without anyone knowing. I know that before 2013 it would sound like a paranoid delusion to suggest such a thing.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.