# TSMC Confirms Employee Data Exposure as Seller Sets 3 Bitcoin (BTC) Starting Bid

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/55439
Published: 2026-11-12T13:24:48.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-12T13:24:48.000Z
Section: Technology

> The seller claims the collection contains 46,000 records, but TSMC has confirmed only that some employee data was exposed.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) confirmed Nov. 12 that some employee data had been exposed. It said it found no evidence its systems were breached and that customer and wafer-production data were not in the exposed records.

The company said some of the records involved current and former employees and matched information held by an unnamed cloud-services provider. Affected employees have begun receiving notices. TSMC has not named the provider or disclosed how many people were affected.

Posts on DarkForums and BreachForums claimed a seller had 46,000 employee records totaling 6.9 gigabytes and set a starting bid of 3 Bitcoin (BTC). The seller posted a sample of 499 records and claimed it would publish the full collection in a week if no buyer emerged. TSMC confirmed some employee data was exposed but has not confirmed the seller’s claimed total.

The seller said the sample contained 19 fields, including names, identification and banking information, and contact details. Those details are seller claims; TSMC’s confirmation was limited to some employee data, and it said customer and wafer-production information were not included.

A prior incident in June 2023 involved ransomware group LockBit listing TSMC on a leak site and demanding $70 million. That incident affected Kinmax, an IT services provider in Hsinchu, and the exposed material mainly involved server setup and configuration information. TSMC said customer data was not exposed and ended data exchanges with Kinmax.