back to article ASML‬ plays down mystery hack attack

‪Semiconductor supplier ASML‬ has admitted that unnamed hackers broke into its systems. In a statement issued on Sunday, the Dutch firm played down the scope of the breach, stating that the compromise was brief and it hadn't found evidence that anything was taken. ASML Holding recently discovered unauthorised access to a …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the machines make 'crinkle cut', then fuck'em

    Can't stand 'crinkle cut' chips.....yuk.

  2. Spaceman Spiff

    What did they leave?

    These days, it isn't so much what they hackers took, but what they left on the systems?

  3. Christoph

    So the NSA can now add their extra circuitry to all the chips made by that equipment?

    1. John 156
      Black Helicopters

      That's a bit far-fetched isn't it? ASML make photolithography equipment; how do you compromise that equipment to burn in a piece of NSA signature circuitry which connects with the rest of any particular chip?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Alien

        Possibilities

        1) You learn how the machines work and by extension, what is possible.

        2) Develop what is possible.

        3) Implement solution in targeted companies that have bought the machines.

        At 4.4 billion transistors in a CPU it would be easy to hide a small hard-coded instruction.

        1. imanidiot Silver badge

          Re: Possibilities

          The chip pattern is baked into the reticle. Which is made by the customer. Hard coding something into a chip from an ASML machine is not possible.

          I suggest you read up on how lithography works before making these comments...

          1. JCitizen
            Coffee/keyboard

            Re: Possibilities

            @imanidiot - Perhaps you could enlighten us and explain why a circuit could not be "piggy backed" onto a lithography plate? I knew a technician that was visiting a lab at one of these locations, that saw an obvious "modification" of a chip design through a microscope; when questioning it, they threw this visiting technician out of the lab.

            1. imanidiot Silver badge

              Re: Possibilities

              The lithography machine itself does not create the circuit. The circuit master itself is encoded on a so called Reticle. This reticle (sort of like a transparency slide) is a (usually 4 times) enlarged master of the circuit, which is then projected onto a resist coated wafer. The resist hardens or softens (depending on type) on the exposed areas and is then washed away, after which etching takes place.

              The production of these masters or reticles is not done by ASML machines but by specific machines designed to do this sort of thing. I know for a fact customers inspect new machines very closely. A piggybacked circuit burned into the reticle stage clamp (the only way I can think of that MIGHT work) would only work for a very specific design of chip where the designer was even kind enough to include all vias, and take the timing and capacities of all this extra circuitry into the design of the rest of the chip. On top of that, I highly doubt a machine with a hardcoded reticle would get past any acceptance inspection by the customer. SOMEONE will notice. On top of that, most chip fabs run very extensive pilot batches which get 100% inspection. Any aditional circuitry that should not be there would get flagged. It would be seriously much easier to hack the chip fabricator themselves and slip the design into the chip itself. It's just as likely to get noticed.

              Check out this explanation of the lithography process: http://www.lithoguru.com/scientist/lithobasics.html

              Then keep in mind that only the "alignment and exposure" step is done by the ASML machine. After that they might come into view on SOME customer sites with its Yieldstart inspection tool on the metrology steps.

              That visiting technician might simply have seen a new chip design or a test design that he wasn't supposed to see. IP protection in production fabs is VERY strict. Even visits from service techs and the likes are planned AROUND the times proto chips will be cycled to avoid any chance of someone seeing something they shouldn't.

              (disclosure, I work in this particular industry and have visited the mentioned company on many occasions)

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