NHS Cyber Attack

[Gazhyde]

I'd be more worried about the general lack of Vista security updates for the next 5 months. Having a secure(ish) browser is good, but running it on an OS that no longer gets security updates isn't. The NHS are currently finding out the perils of not keeping up to date with platforms the hard way.

I'll take my information security manager hat off now and go doze on the sofa

[TitanTim]

I might begrudgingly get Windows 10 and replace Vista with it

Tim.

[DPG]

Noticed that they were using XP last time I visited my local hospital.

Asking for trouble seen as Microshaft stopped supporting / patching the OS in 2014.

We (who I work for) had to pay £1m for support after 2014 until we got onto Win7 / 10.

[Maniac]

This wasn't an NHS attack though. It was instigated by millions of normal phishing emails to a huge generic email database, the ones asking for bank details or for you to open because they're your friends latest holiday snaps. From there once the user has blindly opened the time bomb it's open season.

[TitanTim]

If you think the Americans can sabotage a North Korean missile test with a cyber attack I'm just waiting for Kim Jong to launch ours against Trump

Tim.

[Bottom]

NHS Scotland wasn't affected. I blame Sturgeon

You guys moaning about NHS using obsolete OS's have a point, but unfortunately some very critical software isn't regularly updated and doesn't always play nice with updated versions of the OS.

Case in point, our NHS patient management software broke completely when the IT guys tried to update to the latest version of IE, so had to revert to the version that it was working on. Which meant that many websites were unusable because we were using an old version of IE it took ages until they sorted that one out. If the PMS went out then no appointments could be made or checked, no x-rays available, no patient records, no referral letters from GPs available and so on...

Which is one of the many reasons I use Macs at home

[TitanTim]

Isn't the reason why operating systems aren't updated is down to older software programmes on equipment needing to be updated too to run correctly. It mentioned on the news today that equipment such as scanners/xray machines won't always run on latest windows etc hence why no updates have been done. Were in the same boat at work where we have older Access 97 databases with Oracle back ends which were transferred over to Access 2010 and caused alsorts of problems and unsure they will work in office 16 when we get it

Tim.