TSMC today provided an update on the Company's computer virus outbreak on the evening of August 3, which affected a number of computer systems and fab tools in Taiwan. The degree of infection varied by fab. TSMC contained the problem and found a solution, and as of 14:00 Taiwan time, about 80% of the company's impacted tools have been recovered, and the Company expects full recovery on August 6.

TSMC expects this incident to cause shipment delays and additional costs. We estimate the impact to third quarter revenue to be about three percent, and impact to gross margin to be about one percentage point. The Company is confident shipments delayed in third quarter will be recovered in the fourth quarter 2018, and maintains its forecast of high single -digit revenue growth for 2018 in U.S. dollars given on July 19, 2018. Most of TSMC's customers have been notified of this event, and the Company is working closely with customers on their wafer delivery schedule.

34 different companies (which include Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Nokia, and Oracle) signed the Cybesecurity Tech Accord this week. The Accord, which is being hailed as the "Digital Geneva Accord", ratifies a new era of corporations' protection of customers, and a new way to engage and protect from cyberattacks. The biggest part of this? The pledge not to aid governments in performing any type of cyberattacks against customers. The usage of the word customers isn't an innocent one: a consumer is such in any part of the world, regardless of any given countries' definition.

The idea behind the Accord is to allow "public commitment among 34 global companies to protect and empower civilians online and to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace." This is an effort from tech companies to distance themselves from all manner of centralized government power, and to place themselves in a new, customer-protective light. At the same time, companies are looking to engender a coordinated response to global-scale ransomware attacks, such as last years' WannaCry and NotPetya events. "The devastating attacks from the past year demonstrate that cybersecurity is not just about what any single company can do but also about what we can all do together." said Microsoft President Brad Smith. "This tech sector accord will help us take a principled path towards more effective steps to work together and defend customers around the world." You can read the entire post on the mission and signing of the Accord after the break.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes is the latest victim of the "WannaCry" ransomware attack. The American aerospace giant confirmed that "a small number of" legacy computers tasked with automation of wing spar assembly machines were affected, at a company facility north of Charleston, South Carolina. The company denied that this incident impacts its delivery schedule. Boeing manufactures and delivers widebody commercial jets from its facilities in South Carolina, including its latest 787 Dreamliner, which has a massive order backlog of over 700 aircraft. The company is also manufacturing its next-generation 777-X aircraft there.

The guiding principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," resulted in countless manufacturing companies worldwide retaining old computers (or new computers with old software) which drive vital manufacturing equipment, and which are vulnerable to today's malware and ransomware. These computers fall prey to ransomware such as WannaCry. For a high-stakes operation like Boeing's, broken industrial computers result in cascading delays that cost not just the company, but also airlines relying on Boeing to deliver on time, to execute new routes or replace old aircraft. "WannaCry" is a ransomware that encrypts important files in your system, and makes you pay a ransom in untraceable crypto-currency, to decrypt those files.

After last month's WannaCry outbreak (which persisted in its effects as recently as last week), we now have a new variant of ransomware infecting PCs across Europe. The outbreak seems centered in Ukraine, where several government facilities and critical pieces of infrastructure have been shutdown due to the attacks. The Ukrainian government seemed almost defiantly optimistic, posting this decidedly awesome response to twitter during the attack.

If you thought WannaCry was done, it would appear you were wrong. Honda has appeared as the latest victim of the outbreak, as late as this week. The outbreak was bad enough to stop production at its Sayama plant northeast of Tokyo. That factory can churn out nearly 1,000 vehicles a day, by the way, so this is not a small amount of money lost for the company.

The company says it discovered the malware Sunday, and by Wednesday it had managed to spread to several regions including Japan, North America, Europe, China and other locations (Sayama was the only place to experience an actual shutdown of operations, however).