Chip Giant TSMC Struggles With Virus Infections at its Factories (engadget.com) 64
Many of the tech products launching this fall might have just run into production setbacks. From a report: Giant chip manufacturer TSMC has warned that several of its fabrication plants suffered virus infections on August 3rd, disrupting production. Some of these plants recovered in a "short period of time," it said, but others wouldn't resume business as usual for "one day." The company dismissed claims that this was a hack, but didn't initially provide details about the virus or the potential infection path. TSMC promised more information on August 6th.
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Re: So proud of our country (Score:1)
President Donald J TRUMP kicked my dog!!
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What's wrong with Gary Busey? He's a national treasure.
not a hack (Score:2)
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I'm not saying it was America, Russia or China...
but it was aliens.
Re: not a hack (Score:1)
Windows got Viral ? (Score:2)
Go with Windows, Get Virus....
Get a Penguin, boost your engine.
Ditch Windows! (Score:1)
C'mon, folks. Ditch Windows already!
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Instructions unclear, birds flying in my house.
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You don't know that. It could have been an attack using Meltdown or Spectre, which is indifferent to the OS you are using. Why didn't you say "Ditch Intel", that would make as much sense.
Perhaps we'll have better info tomorrow.
Re:Ditch Windows! (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't know that.
You do know that. The few and far between cases where Linux gets exploited tend to receive gleeful and widespread press coverage of the name and shame kind. Causing Linux guys to double down and work twice as hard to make that not happen again. Never perfect, but undeniably damn good.
When the exploit vector isn't named in the article, you know damn well what it was.
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It's a reasonable guess, but it's a guess.
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It's a reasonable guess, but it's a guess.
It is a guess, but it's a damn good guess.
A bunch of phone manufacturers are happy! (Score:3)
I am certain that this is a small glitch, and will be resolved quite fast.
But nonetheless, it will serve as the perfect excuse for all sorts of manufacturers to either justify that the phones arrived late masking their own incompetence, or to slightly jack up the prices...
Ah, good times!
Re:A bunch of phone manufacturers are happy! (Score:5, Informative)
Given a choice between malware outbreak and killer multi-patterning issues [techreport.com] I would take the malware outbreak every time. But I would also instantly ban Windows inside the corporate perimeter, it's a simple cost benefit thing. Lord help them if they store primary engineering assets on Windows machines.
It only took a single full day meltdown for the London Stock Exchange to learn this lesson. [computerworld.com]
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According to Techcrunch [techcrunch.com] the TSMC virus episode was a vicious attack from China
Not quite right. According to Techcrunch, cyber attacks from China have been increasing. Not a surprise. But Techcrunch did not directly finger China for this one. Even if the Chinese government did it, which seems totally plausible, TSMC shares part of the blame for allowing Windows machines get on their network. Totally unbelievable for IT to be unaware that Windows is the primary attack surface.
To be sure, many or most of those IT guys are Windows sysadmins with a vested interest in keeping the status qu
Industrial Strenght (Score:2, Insightful)
Lemme guess... ms windows?
Maybe a shop like that should always run an industrial strength OS?
(Read: Unix)
Re: Industrial Strenght (Score:1)
"big metal rig"
Is that like a lathe, or an oil drilling platform, or something?
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My home shop runs on MS-DOS and my work files are plain text files.
No Windows, no random executables, no networking, no problems.
First clue was (Score:1)
Who does control you? (Score:1)
Inmho, the backdoors, the spectre/meltdown variants, the cyberweapons that had the U.S. three letter agencies, etc. could be the responsible of facilitating the infections of viruses in the factories of TSMC.
I remembered it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
My new question is: why is TSMC being attacked?
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Inmho, the backdoors, the spectre/meltdown variants, the cyberweapons that had the U.S. three letter agencies, etc. could be the responsible of facilitating the infections of viruses in the factories of TSMC.
I remembered it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
My new question is: why is TSMC being attacked?
Give me a break. The problem is that they have these machines on the internet for some unknown reason, and even worse, they seem to be running Windows.
Anyone that has ever done any kind of sysadmin work knows that a machine plugged into the internet is under attack all the time.
Exactly (Score:2)
Some idiot probably opened an email attachment and hello ransomware!
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Some idiot running Window probably opened an email attachment and hello ransomware!
FTFY. You know it's true.
Re: Exactly (Score:2)
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In fact, with the latest version of Windows the security is so bad that you don't even need to receive the infected email!
Probably Intel (Score:1)
Mission critical? (Score:2)
As shareholder I'd consult a lawyer.
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Good luck with that. This practice is as demented as it is widespread.
Corporate sabotage? (Score:2)
Is someone over at Intel getting desperate?
USB Drives and Outdated Windows Installs (Score:5, Informative)
These factories, and broadly most factories making tech components, run a mishmash of ancient, unpatched copies of Windows, Linux, embedded systems, and PLCs together on a network mostly isolated from the internet. They end up getting contaminated by employees inserting USB drives and installing dictionary software or simply updating industrial software using their dirty drives from home. So itâ(TM)s not likely a cyber attack. Or if it is, itâ(TM)s one deployed in person.
My company worked in one such factory with QSMC (thus anon posting) and our machine got hit with nasty trojans and viruses so many times that eventually we epoxyed caps on all external USB ports and threw a lock on the case. Only then would the machine last more than a month without getting choked out by malware.
Now we only use windows PCs for prototyping and deploy as many locked down embedded systems as we can. Weâ(TM)re also migrating to Linux PCs because other manufacturers (not QSMC) are so tired of this shit that theyâ(TM)ve stopped allowing Windows in their factories at all.
Re:USB Drives and Outdated Windows Installs (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, it is posts like yours that make it worth wading through all the sludge.
Now we only use windows PCs for prototyping
Right, a lot of good engineering software runs only on Windows, but you don't need a Windows PC to run it, virtualization is highly effective and seamless these days. You do need a Windows license but only the most basic and the cost is trivial.
Beyond that, a lot of engineering tools come from small coding shops. Just pay for a Linux port. The big boys are already on Linux [cadence.com] (BTW, more than a little interesting that ARM shows up in the selected support category.)
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The website is down (Score:2)
Obligatory ditch Windows comment (Score:2)
Obligatory: ditch Windows for Linux or at least MacOS inside the corporate perimeter like Google did. Whatever the perceived value of Windows, it just is not worth the never ending parade of fiascos such as this.
It's probably China (Score:2)