Apple chip supplier confirms data breach, hackers claim $70 million ransomware – Times of India

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), Apple‘s chip supplier, has been targeted by the LockBit group, who claims to have obtained sensitive information from the company. This comes almost five years after TSMC was hit by the WannaCry ransomware, causing a production shutdown. The hackers are demanding $70 million and have set a deadline of August 6th. If their demands are unmet, they have threatened to disclose all the stolen information publicly.
According to TSMC, the security breach occurred with one of its IT hardware suppliers resulting in the theft of important information. The hackers demanded a ransom of $70 million. However, after a detailed investigation, TSMC has assured that its business operations were not affected, and customer data remains secure.
“TSMC has recently been aware that one of our IT hardware suppliers experienced a cybersecurity incident, which led to the leak of information pertinent to server initial setup and configuration,” reads a statement by TSMC. “At TSMC, every hardware component undergoes a series of extensive checks and adjustments, including security configurations, before being installed into TSMC’s system. Upon review, this incident has not affected TSMC’s business operations or compromised any TSMC’s customer information.”
Following the security breach, TSMC has cut off all data exchange with the supplier involved as per their security protocols and standard operating procedures.
The attack impacted Kinmax Technology, a systems integrator based in Taiwan that specialises in networking, storage, database management, and security services. Kinmax Technology collaborates with several multinational corporations, such as Cisco, HPE, Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, and Nvidia.
According to Kinmax, there was a security breach in their internal testing environment which resulted in some information being leaked. The leaked data mostly consisted of default setup instructions that the company provides to their clients.
The company has apologised for any inconvenience caused to their customers whose names were included in the leaked data. They have implemented stronger security measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future.