A computer virus in TSMC plants has halted the operations of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. This could cause a massive disruption to the Apple Inc’s next iPhone’s Chips. The company has said that most of its fabrications tools have been affected by this virus and while the company has contained the problem and resumed the production of the several factories a major number of the company’s factories don’t start until Sunday. The virus was not deployed by a hacker according to the most recent report.
The company is still unclear who has affected the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of the chips for companies such as Apple and Qualcomm Inc. This would be the first virus that has brought the entire factory’s operations down. TSMC is currently working on the solutions that will provide more information after Monday after the technical staff has assessed the situation.
“TSMC has been attacked by viruses before, but this is the first time a virus attack has affected our production lines,” Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho told Bloomberg News by phone.
Ho did not disclose how much revenue it would lose as a result of the disruption, or whether the facilities affected were involved in making iPhone chips.
The company didn’t disclose the money that it would lose after being a victim of this virus. Generally according to the last year’s analytics cyber crime is costing the global economy approximately $445 Billion in damages. The data was compiled from the World Economic Forum. The implications of the virus are unclear for Apple as the iPhone maker which has surpassed the market value of $1 trillion because of the sales of its pioneering smartphone.
“Certain factories returned to normal in a short period of time, and we expect the others will return to normal in one day,” the company said in its Saturday statement.
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