NHS England hit by 'cyber attack'

[219]

NHS cyber-attack: GPs and hospitals hit by ransomware - BBC News

Not just England ; here too .

 

[219]

At least a major portion of the UK Defence budget has been well invested in defending us from modern risks, like Cyber-terrorism.

https://youtu.be/1aPvGGvnAGQ

Well , if you can identify where the hackers are , it would be a quick and effective way of shutting them down .

 

[grober]

Of course there are other "security" implications about the data held on patients within the NHS that have nothing to do with the "cyber security"of operating systems ??
Remember the CARE DATA debacle last year? Its not only hackers that are after your health data.

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...p-single-database-of-patients-medical-details
What next for NHS Care.data plan after its leader Tim Kelsey quit?

 

[219]

Was that for comedic effect? Or they genuinely using Xp??


Sent using a tin can on the end of a string

The Fire Service were , until just a few years back ; back then there was a crash causing people to lose all emails , diaries and documents - it was chaotic for a while .

 

[400ixl]

Ah, yes the nonsense 'we're legion, hence we're crap" excuse ... any linux exploit would have to rely on stupidity of the user, not rubbish OS architecture - that's the main difference.

And where is the difference with Windows these days.

The user is always the weakest link and will do silly things to make their life easier.

Linux as a server environment has had as many critical zero day exploits as a modern Windows server in the last 5 years or so.

There have been a lot more exploits above the OS layer as there are many many more applications to exploit and the attack surface is a factor of thousands higher than in Linux.

Linux is never going to be the answer in an enterprise such as the NHS so it really is a moot argument.

It has its place and many back end systems are getting written for Linux hosts these days but the vast majority aren't.

And seeing as health is heading into a much broader patient centric and wellness era which is going to mean far more mobile app and web centric the whole dynamics are going to change over the next 5 years. The challenge of inter-operability across the whole care pathways is going to bring a whole new challenge as health organisations digitise to move in to the new era.

 

[400ixl]

The Fire Service were , until just a few years back ; back then there was a crash causing people to lose all emails , diaries and documents - it was chaotic for a while .

Some NHS trusts are still predominantly on XP but these are in the vast minority these days. Most have at least made it to Windows 7 for the bulk of the workplace environment. Nearly all will still have some reliance in places on XP where the application isn't compatible and the resources or skills have not been available.

Typically it is the Trusts with internal IT who are under invested in and are stuck. The ones who have outsourced are more likely to be in a better position and better managed from an infrastructure point of view. Not all but in general.

This is where Joe Public does not realise the discipline brought in by private industry is more the NHS forward and protecting the service, making it a better and cheaper service overall. But that doesn't make good press so lets try to remove private organisations and let the public sector management who carry on as they do.

 

[grober]

Some NHS trusts are still predominantly on XP but these are in the vast minority these days. Most have at least made it to Windows 7 for the bulk of the workplace environment. Nearly all will still have some reliance in places on XP where the application isn't compatible and the resources or skills have not been available.

Typically it is the Trusts with internal IT who are under invested in and are stuck. The ones who have outsourced are more likely to be in a better position and better managed from an infrastructure point of view. Not all but in general.

This is where Joe Public does not realise the discipline brought in by private industry is more the NHS forward and protecting the service, making it a better and cheaper service overall. But that doesn't make good press so lets try to remove private organisations and let the public sector management who carry on as they do.

On the other hand there's PFI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_finance_initiative#National_Health_Service_.28NHS.29

 

[optimusprime]

So what,, i am still on Windows XP platform along with FireFox . Its doing the job for me .The windows 10 i have is only switched on to up date it .All hard work is done on this 17 year old .

 

[markjay]

Not Linux expert myself, but we support various appliances and web servers (both physical and virtual) running Linux, e.g. Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc, and patches are released from time to time to close security holes / exploits / vulnerabilities, though nowhere near as frequent as Windows.

Linux' relative security is probably a combination of it being fundamentally more secure AND far less common than Windows.

 

[Peter103]

We never had these problems in the old days, lets hear it for the Notebook and Pencil!

 

[markjay]

The Fire Service were , until just a few years back ; back then there was a crash causing people to lose all emails , diaries and documents - it was chaotic for a while .

If they had no working backups... that's just plain mismanagement, not a technical fault .

 

[markjay]

...Typically it is the Trusts with internal IT who are under invested in and are stuck. The ones who have outsourced are more likely to be in a better position and better managed from an infrastructure point of view. Not all but in general.....

I could not agree more.

 

[400ixl]

On the other hand there's PFI.

Now there is a complete and utter mess

 

[Darrell]

Who was that?

I can't remember. But it has been in the last 3 years. He was about 19.

 

[markjay]

I can't remember. But it has been in the last 3 years. He was about 19.

This?

https://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/insurance-finance/171909-best-option-18-years-old.html

https://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/general-discussion/178869-bought-myself-a45-amg-today.html

 

[LiveForever]

And I forgot to mention Telefonica and other Spain companies. So perhaps it's not so much an issue of funding... but prioritising?

The company I work for is owned be Iberdrola.

We all got told to log off our computers yesterday afternoon. After about half an hour they told us just to go home, but make sure every computer was logged off.

We don't use XP, so it must got into our systems via Spain as we are linked to their systems.

 

[grober]

The problem seems fairly simple. Leaving the few XP folks aside, most other Microsoft Operating systems would have been protected had their software been patched with the normal FREE Microsoft updates. Apparently this potential exploit had been identified for 2 months. This would perhaps explain the patchy nature of the damage spread. This was an avoidable disaster. The question remains was this simply NHS mis-management or resource mediated. Did Trust bean counters constantly knock back requests from their IT professionals for system upgrades, increased security, additional staff resources for implementing upgrades etc - in favour of say expensive chemo therapy drugs an MRI scanner or extra nursing cover to keep wards operating-- choices choices --where's the boundary between mismanagement and an organisation overwhelmed by demand and diminishing resources?

 

[LiveForever]

The problem seems fairly simple. Leaving the few XP folks aside, most other Microsoft Operating systems would have been protected had their software been patched with the normal FREE Microsoft updates. Apparently this potential exploit had been identified for 2 months. This would perhaps explain the patchy nature of the damage spread. This was an easily avoidable disaster.

That is my understanding of it all.

Whoever is responsible for patching and system updates is in for a severe roasting on Monday morning.

 

[markjay]

The problem seems fairly simple. Leaving the few XP folks aside, most other Microsoft Operating systems would have been protected had their software been patched with the normal FREE Microsoft updates. Apparently this potential exploit had been identified for 2 months. This would perhaps explain the patchy nature of the damage spread. This was an avoidable disaster. The question remains was this simply NHS mis-management or resource mediated. Did Trust bean counters constantly knock back requests from their IT professionals for system upgrades, increased security, additional staff resources for implementing upgrades etc - in favour of say expensive chemo therapy drugs an MRI scanner or extra nursing cover to keep wards operating-- choices choices --where's the boundary between mismanagement and an organisation overwhelmed by demand and diminishing resources?

This is a fundamental issue...

A well-managed organisation starved for cash definitely needs more funding.

A poorly-managed organisation wasting resources - the worst thing you can do is give it more money.

But it can be difficult to identify which is which without the full cooperation of management at all levels.

 

[219]

If they had no working backups... that's just plain mismanagement, not a technical fault .

I think , but don't know the full circumstances , the then head of IT resigned following the issue .

While we have Windows pc's for email , diary etc , but all our main work is done on our closed local network of Macs , with our own servers running incremental nightly backups , and no connection to the outside world .

So far , so good .