TSMC Blames WannaCry Variant for Plant Closures

Taiwan chipmaker TSMC, reeling from a computer virus that shut down several plants over the weekend, is expected to be able to fill orders on time for Apple as it gears up to release new iPhones later this year, according to Bloomberg.

The company said earlier that full operations have resumed after a variant of the 2017 WannaCry ransomware affected production over the weekend. The infection, which happened when a supplier installed tainted software without a virus scan, spread swiftly and hit facilities in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taichung, home to some of the plants that produce Apple’s semiconductors.

Nehal Chokshi, an analyst with Maxim Group, said delays to Apple should be limited because it appears that no wafers, a semiconductor material involved in the production of chips, were affected. “My suspicion is that there will be minimal impact on Apple,“ he said. “Nothing has been scrapped, just simply production days have been impacted.

The wait time between raw wafer to finished chips is about six to eight weeks, Chokshi said, which would cause a much more serious delay if that part of the production line was affected. However, in this case, the time Apple will have to wait to receive the chips will be extended only by the number of days production was delayed, which is about three days, he said.

The company intends to make up for the lost time as it heads into the critical holiday season, Apple’s most important quarter. The chipmaker will probably prioritize Apple, its largest customer, over smaller clients as it resumes normal operations, Chokshi said.

TSMC CEO C. C. Wei wouldn’t discuss where the malware variant originated, nor how it made it past the company’s security protocols. No hacker targeted TSMC, Wei said, explaining that the infected production tool was provided by an unidentified vendor. The company is overhauling its procedures after encountering a virus more complex than initially thought, he said.