Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has confirmed an unauthorized disclosure of employee data after an unknown hacker offered what they claimed were 46,000 records for sale. The incident matters because the information concerns current and former employees, although TSMC said it had found no evidence of an intrusion into its own systems.

The hacker demanded 3 BTC for the data, according to a TSMC statement cited by Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

The offer appeared on an underground forum, TVBS reported. The seller claimed to possess a 6.9 GB archive containing employees’ personal information. Local media estimated the requested payment at about 7.4 million New Taiwan dollars.

The seller threatened to publish the entire archive if no buyer emerged within a week. The authenticity of all the records offered for sale and the stated volume of information have not been independently verified.

TSMC said the exposed data matched information stored in the system of one of its third-party cloud service providers. The chipmaker did not identify the provider.

The company said the incident did not affect information about its production processes or customers. It also said investigators had so far found no evidence that anyone had entered TSMC’s own information systems.

TSMC has begun notifying affected employees and providing assistance. The company is working with the cloud provider, law enforcement agencies and independent cybersecurity experts to determine how the incident occurred.

As of publication, TSMC had not determined the exact number of employees affected or how the hacker obtained the information. The company also did not say whether it had identified the seller.

In October 2026, crypto exchange Bithumb also experienced a leak of employees’ personal data. Attackers accessed the company’s internal mobile system, but its trading infrastructure was not affected, and no theft of crypto assets was reported.

Source: Incrypted