Apple chip manufacturer TSMC factories taken down by computer virus

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  • Reply 41 of 48
    dewmedewme Posts: 6,104member
    macxpress said:
    This is why they should be using Macs....
    I’ve never seen a Mac based industrial product. They theoretically could exist. PC based industrial devices are somewhat ubiquitous over the last 30 years especially for engineering tools, HMI, and SCADA. At the controller/PLC level there have been PC based controllers for at least the past 20+ years. Linux and even Raspberry Pi based PLCs, HMIs, and data acquisition systems are available. Also, the communication interfaces and software drivers for most non-Ethernet based IO busses, networking interfaces, and device management are all PC based. Beyond the hardware and software legacy factor and the installed base, it’s very easy to obtain industrial hardened PCs from several different vendors at several different price points. This allows applications to be developed on desktop machines and deployed to hardened/embedded PCs. I’m not aware of a single industrial hardened Mac computer, which I asssume could only come from Apple. Even the Mac Mini would be unsuitable for many industrial applications. Any Mac could theoretically be used for an HMI or SCADA with the right underlying hardware and software support but I don’t see any automation vendors rushing to develop such a system. Heck, there are still MicroVAX and Sun Microsystems computers in daily use, mostly in process control systems that have > 20 year expected lifetimes. In the industrial automation domain PCs are simply building blocks or components of larger systems, which is why they aren’t typically subject to the same lifecycle model as office and home based computers. As long as they are running and contributing to profit they are left alone.    
    avon b7
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  • Reply 42 of 48
    tokyojimutokyojimu Posts: 538member
    longpath said:
    The article uses the term targeted and the phrase “not an intrusion”. Does this mean that the infection was brought in by sneakernet
    Probably the old leave-an-infected-flash-drive-by-the-company-entrance trick. 
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  • Reply 43 of 48
    hexclock said:
    claire1 said:

    "Apple chip manufacturer TSMC factories taken down by computer virus"


    Didn't know they used Windows machines. Kinda ironic.
    Most manufacturers do.
    The A12 Bionics fabbed with Windows 98. 
    It can happen. Most  industrial machine Software does not get updated for decades 

    Please. Chip fabs are always on the bleeding edge, especially since they're always going to new nodes. Do you actually think they're using the same equipment for their new 7nm chips that they were for their 10nm, 16nm or earlier chips? I doubt there's anything in a 7nm chip fab line that's older than 1-2 years tops.
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  • Reply 44 of 48
    Fatman said:
    Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
    Agree, but money is only one reason for the Chinese to have a large worldwide phone brand. The other is control.

    Huawei- and ZTE phones were recently marked as huge security risks by FBI, CIA, and NSA. China is now price dumping Huawei phones and spreading them all over the world. (Just passed Apple in sold number of phones globally.)

    You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see what this is all about. Imagine the consequences if they would successfully infiltrate a chip factory and implant secret functionality directly in the hardware. Such hacks could be extremely difficult to spot.

    I don't think you understand how a chip is made. It would be absolutely 100% IMPOSSIBLE for this to be done through a virus or through "hacked" software.

    The ONLY way you could modify something like an Apple processor (to install additional functionality) would be if a LARGE NUMBER of engineers on the Apple processor design team were directly modifying the chip design to insert such functionality. And also hope that for some strange reason the other engineers just never noticed there were extra blocks in the chip that they didn't know about.

    In other words, it's virtually impossible. 
    Rayz2016
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  • Reply 45 of 48
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,179member
    It wouldn't surprise me if many of the machines still use PC's running Windows XP.  I've seen too many stories over the years with photographs of walkthroughs of "modern" plants still showing workstations running that antiquated system.
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  • Reply 46 of 48
    linkmanlinkman Posts: 1,071member
    I work at a very large distribution center and about 15 years ago the shipping department lost an entire day's worth of production due a Blaster variant worm. It infected most of the Windows machines, but due to the ARP traffic that propagated onto the RF network it crippled all of the mobile computers (wearable, handheld, and forklift units that ran some DOS version back then). The mobile units with their tiny CPUs couldn't devote enough processing time to their desired task and were instead spending most of their power handling all of the ARP packets.
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  • Reply 47 of 48
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,772member
    Fatman said:
    Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
    Agree, but money is only one reason for the Chinese to have a large worldwide phone brand. The other is control.

    Huawei- and ZTE phones were recently marked as huge security risks by FBI, CIA, and NSA. China is now price dumping Huawei phones and spreading them all over the world. (Just passed Apple in sold number of phones globally.)

    You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see what this is all about. Imagine the consequences if they would successfully infiltrate a chip factory and implant secret functionality directly in the hardware. Such hacks could be extremely difficult to spot.

    I don't think you understand how a chip is made. It would be absolutely 100% IMPOSSIBLE for this to be done through a virus or through "hacked" software.

    The ONLY way you could modify something like an Apple processor (to install additional functionality) would be if a LARGE NUMBER of engineers on the Apple processor design team were directly modifying the chip design to insert such functionality. And also hope that for some strange reason the other engineers just never noticed there were extra blocks in the chip that they didn't know about.

    In other words, it's virtually impossible. 
    It may not be quite as difficult as all that:
    https://www.wired.com/2016/06/demonically-clever-backdoor-hides-inside-computer-chip/

    and in 2014 there was a proof-of-concept paper published on installing trojans at the CPU manufacturing stage:
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285417534_Stealthy_dopant-level_hardware_Trojans_Extended_version

    Fully agree with you that none of this would be easy according to what I've been reading. A few fortunate guesses are needed for some methods, and there's nothing in this event report to indicate that hacking chips was the goal anyway. 
    edited August 2018
    muthuk_vanalingam
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  • Reply 48 of 48
    The first I heard of this was seeing an article title that said that an Apple chip maker was shut down due to a virus. I have to be honest, when I saw that I thought it meant that all the workers in the factory got sick :-(
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