On Saturday Patently Apple posted a report titled "All TSMC Plants were hit by an Unknown Computer Virus which temporarily shut down Production." Naturally at the time of the initial reports there were no real assessments provided of the potential damage or possible production delays. While TSMC's new CEO CC Wei held a press conference late yesterday to clarify the matter, there was absolutely no mention of a delay for Apple iPhones to kill off potential fake news to upset the market.

The report covering the news conference stated that TSMC has made its full recovery after being hit by a computer virus, said company CEO CC Wei at a press event on August 6. The impact on its third-quarter revenues is expected to be less than 2% compared with the 3% estimated previously, according to Wei.

The identified computer virus was a variant of WannaCry, said Wei, adding that the virus infected computer systems and fab equipment and forced the company to bring several fabs including its major 12-inch ones offline. However, TSMC has managed to fully recover its fab operations, Wei noted.

The fab tools, automated handling systems and other equipment infected, all ran unpatched Windows 7, Wei continued.

TSMC's production information and customer data were all safe and not hit by the virus incident, Wei claimed.

The event will affect negatively TSMC's third-quarter results, but will have a less-than-expected impact, Wei said. The company now expects the impact on its third-quarter revenues to be less than 2%.

Wei reiterated TSMC is confident shipments delayed in the third quarter will be recovered in the fourth quarter.

TSMC CFO Lora Ho said the company is striving for profit growth in 2018, but admitted additional costs resulted from the virus incident will hit its gross margin and profitability.

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