NHS cyber attack ..

Fretwired

Our BT exchange is 'experiencing problems' .... no phones.

capo4th

Jeremy Corbyn is responsible he is clearly deflecting attention from his leaked manifesto shambles yesterday.

Jalapeno

On the reported scale of the infection - I hope the perpetrators have a HUGE contact centre to process all the payments !!!!!!

They ought to be REALLY easy to track - just follow the money !!!!!!!

bodhi

Last time I went to the GP, I'm pretty sure he was typing stuff into a Windows XP machine...

monquixote

Jalapeno said:

On the reported scale of the infection - I hope the perpetrators have a HUGE contact centre to process all the payments !!!!!!

They ought to be REALLY easy to track - just follow the money !!!!!!!

It's all Bitcoin so don't expect that to be easy.

Jalapeno

monquixote said:

Jalapeno said:

On the reported scale of the infection - I hope the perpetrators have a HUGE contact centre to process all the payments !!!!!!

They ought to be REALLY easy to track - just follow the money !!!!!!!

It's all Bitcoin so don't expect that to be easy.

If they f*cked over the Russians and the Chinese as reported, they'll be found, and it won't be pleasant ....

But you're right Bitcoin will make it hard. BAN IT NOW !!!!!!! (well that's the headline I expect in the Daily Fail tomorrow or Sunday)

exocet

I've been involved in IT projects within a few NHS trusts over the past few years. I got the impression that whilst there are official NHS networks and systems, many trusts do their own thing with respect to local systems and networks. Or to put it another way, it didn't look like there was much in the way of a central IT policy being followed. Many trusts outsource IT provision to the usual suspects...each using their own disparate data centres, connectivity and standards. Pretty sure that some NHS trusts are still using Windows XP on desktop.

earwighoney

darthed1981 said:

Blaendulais said:

Why Russia...why not IS?

Resources - the NHS is a huge organisation and is likely very well protected ( though it may turn out not as well as it should be) I doubt IS could pull it off.

They seem to have done more than just DDOS as well, they seem to have gotten ransomware onto all the PCs - that is some clever attack for sure.

You'd think that but when I worked in the Civil Service (several departments) IT security was surprisingly really poor, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the same situation for the NHS. 

TheBlueWolf

Jalapeno said:

monquixote said:

Jalapeno said:

On the reported scale of the infection - I hope the perpetrators have a HUGE contact centre to process all the payments !!!!!!

They ought to be REALLY easy to track - just follow the money !!!!!!!

It's all Bitcoin so don't expect that to be easy.

If they f*cked over the Russians and the Chinese as reported, they'll be found, and it won't be pleasant ....

But you're right Bitcoin will make it hard. BAN IT NOW !!!!!!! (well that's the headline I expect in the Daily Fail tomorrow or Sunday)

I'm guessing the perpetrators have covered their tracks. This *could* just be designed to raise as much hell as possible, but either way there's going to be trouble.

monquixote

exocet said:

I've been involved in IT projects within a few NHS trusts over the past few years. I got the impression that whilst there are official NHS networks and systems, many trusts do their own thing with respect to local systems and networks. Or to put it another way, it didn't look like there was much in the way of a central IT policy being followed. Many trusts outsource IT provision to the usual suspects...each using their own disparate data centres and standards. Pretty sure that some NHS trusts are still using Windows XP on desktop.

If they are they are totally knackered as there is no XP patch for the exploit being used which is thought to be ETERNALBLUE which was created by our friends at the NSA.

Any Windows machine not patched since 14th March is vulnerable so if you have a Windows box get it patched.

Fretwired

capo4th said:

Jeremy Corbyn is responsible he is clearly deflecting attention from his leaked manifesto shambles yesterday.

Go check Twitter ... people are throwing some serious shit  at the Tories .. this is a massive vote loser for May.

Jalapeno

Fretwired said:

capo4th said:

Jeremy Corbyn is responsible he is clearly deflecting attention from his leaked manifesto shambles yesterday.

Go check Twitter ... people are throwing some serious shit  at the Tories .. this is a massive vote loser for May.

I'm sure the political opportunists will be making hay, but by morning it'll be a global problem and not election fodder. 

But it is f'ing serious though !!!!!!!

Roland

It may also be a distraction crime, with a separate attack going on elsewhere

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

Fretwired said:

capo4th said:

Jeremy Corbyn is responsible he is clearly deflecting attention from his leaked manifesto shambles yesterday.

Go check Twitter ... people are throwing some serious shit  at the Tories .. this is a massive vote loser for May.

I'm sure the political opportunists will be making hay, but by morning it'll be a global problem and not election fodder. 

But it is f'ing serious though !!!!!!!

Not sure. If I were Labour I'd switch my attack to the lack of funding on the NHS - using PC's with XP is just criminal. It's one area that Labour always does well in and I'm sure Labour can ratchet up the paranoia. This will be all over the news this weekend and will directly affect a lot of people.

JMP220478

all too easy in huge systems / points of access / varying degrees of compliance / standardisation and I'm sure there will have been budget cuts n IT wont have been ring-fenced from that ..

exocet

Fretwired said:

Jalapeno said:

Fretwired said:

capo4th said:

Jeremy Corbyn is responsible he is clearly deflecting attention from his leaked manifesto shambles yesterday.

Go check Twitter ... people are throwing some serious shit  at the Tories .. this is a massive vote loser for May.

I'm sure the political opportunists will be making hay, but by morning it'll be a global problem and not election fodder. 

But it is f'ing serious though !!!!!!!

Not sure. If I were Labour I'd switch my attack to the lack of funding on the NHS - using PC's with XP is just criminal. It's one area that Labour always does well in and I'm sure Labour can ratchet up the paranoia. This will be all over the news this weekend and will directly affect a lot of people.

Lack of cash is behind this. When I asked about the presence of XP in a trust that I was dealing with last year, it was explained that whilst they were licensed by MS to have Windows 7, 8 etc, that there was no budget to replace hardware platform / test apps and deploy new desktop build. There was also an acknowledged lack of skilled resources internally to carry out thed tasks. One of the reasons to outsource was to enable commercial approach to IT service delivery.

Fretwired

exocet said:

Lack of cash is behind this. When I asked about the presence of XP in a trust that I was dealing with last year, it was explained that whilst they were licensed by MS to have Windows 7, 8 etc, that there was no budget to replace hardware platform / test apps and deploy new desktop build. There was also an acknowledged lack of skilled resources internally to carry out thed tasks. One of the reasons to outsource was to enable commercial approach to IT service delivery.

People are Tweeting a link to this which backs up what you say .. lack of funding ..

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2479315/90-per-cent-of-nhs-trusts-are-still-running-windows-xp-machines

bodhi

Well, the company I work for was bought by a much larger American company a while back, and to our horror every single employee of said company had his/her own laptop with local administrator privileges on it - w..t..f..!!

It can be quite tricky to secure a large organisation.  Hell, it can be quite tricky to secure a small one, for that matter.  One little hole is all it takes and you're screwed.

Unfortunately people do tend to learn the hard way.

Jalapeno

According to BBC this is global.  Feels like Mr Robot coming true !!!!

guitarfishbay

Jalapeno said:

According to BBC this is global.  Feels like Mr Robot coming true !!!!

Just had the same thought.

Well hopefully what comes next will be better than season 2...