How the Event Impacts the Company As the world’s leading contract chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) depends heavily on international freight networks and logistics platforms to ensure the timely supply of raw materials (such as silicon wafers, ultra-pure chemicals, photoresists) and to deliver finished chips to downstream customers and equipment vendors. The credential theft campaign by Diesel Vortex targeting freight and logistics companies undermines platform trust and security, which may materialize in concrete impacts on TSMC as follows: Raw Materials → Intermediate Products → Final Chip Shipments Delayed: - In the sourcing of raw materials, TSMC relies on carriers, logistics platforms, and freight brokers to coordinate routes and contracts. If credentials are stolen or used fraudulently (e.g. booking shipments under falsely assumed identities, altering routing via compromised accounts), shipments of raw inputs may be disrupted or diverted, delaying arrival at fabs. - During intermediate phases (wafer fabrication → packaging → testing), fraudulent activity on logistics platforms could lead to cancellation, misrouting, or delays of shipments between fabs, packaging, and test sites, affecting lead time and quality control. - For finished chip deliveries, precise logistics arrangements are critical to send products to key customers (e.g. Apple, Huawei, automakers). Widespread credential compromise among freight/logistics partners may result in additional audits, insurance and legal delays, thereby extending delivery times, incurring penalties or causing loss of market opportunities. Moreover, large-scale theft of logistics credentials may force platform operators to increase security expenditures (defensive measures, remediation, indemnity), and some of these costs are likely passed on to users including TSMC, increasing transport costs (sea, land, air) and insurance premiums. Logistics disruptions also introduce upstream and downstream uncertainty, prompting TSMC to bolster safety stock or switch to backup routes/suppliers—adding complexity and expense to operations. Overall, such phishing attacks against freight infrastructure can impact TSMC at raw material acquisition, intermediate production, and final output stages—leading to delays, higher costs, and reputational risk, thereby affecting its capacity utilization and profitability.