Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC has confirmed the unauthorized disclosure of personal data of some current and former employees. Earlier, an unknown hacker put up for sale presumably 46,000 records for 3 BTC. This is reported by Central News Agency (CNA), citing a company statement.
According to TVBS, an offer to sell the database appeared on an underground forum. The attacker claims to have a 6.9 GB archive containing personal information of the company's employees. He demanded 3 BTC for the information, which amounts to about 7.4 million new Taiwan dollars according to local media estimates.
The seller also threatened to publish the entire archive if no buyer is found within a week. The authenticity of all offered recordings and the claimed volume of information have not been independently confirmed.
TSMC explained that the discovered data corresponds to information posted in the system of one of its third-party cloud service providers. The company did not disclose the provider's name.
The chipmaker also emphasized that the incident did not affect information about production processes and customers. At the same time, no evidence of penetration into TSMC's own information systems has been found so far.
The company has already begun notifying affected employees and providing them with the necessary assistance. TSMC is cooperating with the cloud provider, investigative authorities, and independent cybersecurity experts to establish the circumstances of what happened.
As of the time of publication, the exact number of affected employees and the method by which the attacker obtained the information have not been established. TSMC also did not report whether it had been possible to identify the seller of the data.
Recall that in October 2026, the crypto exchange Bithumb also faced a leak of employee personal data. Attackers gained access to the company's internal mobile system, but the trading infrastructure was not affected. No theft of crypto assets was reported.