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Source: (consider it) Thread: NHS cyber attack
Sipech
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# 16870

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To the person or people responsible for a massive hack on the NHS's computers, you are the most sickening of evil cunts. Was it some kind of joke to you? Did you think of the potential ramifications of your actions. Of the thousands of ill people in hospital, needing care and treatment from an already under-funded and strained system, staffed by people of great humanity and compassion, how many of them hurt you?

It would be understandable if someone wished to pour battery acid into your orifices as punishment for what you've done. And you know what? The NHS would be there to try to save you and treat your injuries. Because that's what good people do.

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Paul.
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# 37

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How dare hackers hold the NHS to ransom, that's the government's job!

Though actually, it's still unclear exactly what's happened. I'm not sure this was an attack targeted at the NHS specifically. It looks more like an opportunistic bit of malware that happens to have infected a lot of NHS computers.

Of course there's a good chance that they happen to be particularly vulnerable because of the lack of resources for up to date software, for training etc.

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Boogie

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# 13538

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It would have been excellent if the hackers became in dire need of hospital treatment on the very day they wouldn't get it.

Hopefully their dicks rotted away before their eyes while the doctors tried in vain to access their notes.

[Mad]

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
How dare hackers hold the NHS to ransom, that's the government's job!

If they hadn't attacked soon, the corpse's purse would have been empty.

quote:

Of course there's a good chance that they happen to be particularly vulnerable because of the lack of resources for up to date software, for training etc.

This is likely the case for the majority of places affected. Agencies/businesses need to constantly prepare. With the NHS budget already under threat, they will have been less prepared.

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Boogie

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# 13538

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Don't blame the victim [Frown]

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Schroedinger's cat

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I have been in IT for many years. Very occasionally, I have fallen foul of attacks - despite knowing the risks knowing how to keep safe.

Don't blame the NHS staff, they have enough to deal with being held to ransom by the Tories. And it is hard to see it as a targetted attack.

But the people who write these things, which are deliberately written and distributed to extort money. I hope their gonads rot off.

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balaam

Making an ass of myself
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It's hard to say if greed or selfishness is the motivation behind this.

Unlike Schroedinger's cat I hope their gonads stay attached. Painfully infected, but attached.

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lilBuddha
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Who is blaming the victim? Certainly not me.
But I would be shocked if the NHS system was up to par.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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Guess who's still at work sorting the mess out?

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Guess who's still at work sorting the mess out?

The NHS IT staff. And?

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rolyn
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All this talk of dicks and gonads. I suppose one has to assume the perpetrator(s) is/are male [Disappointed]

Totally unscrupulous criminals are a problem, total computer dependency is a problem. Here endeth the stating of the bleeding obvious.

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Ricardus
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
How dare hackers hold the NHS to ransom, that's the government's job!

Though actually, it's still unclear exactly what's happened. I'm not sure this was an attack targeted at the NHS specifically. It looks more like an opportunistic bit of malware that happens to have infected a lot of NHS computers.

Yes, I think if I was going to hold the NHS to ransom I'd ask for a bit more than $300. Although maybe they worked out that's how much is left in the kitty.

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
All this talk of dicks and gonads. I suppose one has to assume the perpetrator(s) is/are male [Disappointed]

Totally unscrupulous criminals are a problem, total computer dependency is a problem. Here endeth the stating of the bleeding obvious.

Not sure how you would pull computers out of the equation, it would be difficult to do the job without them.

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Hallellou, hallellou

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Wesley J

Silly Shipmate
# 6075

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It's all over the world, and not only targetting the NHS in the UK, according to Reuters!

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Jay-Emm
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Guess who's still at work sorting the mess out?

The NHS IT staff. And?
The NHS non IT staff? (with running a hospital sans IT and catching up on a backlog)
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Jay-Emm
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You do wonder if the back doors they keep wanting left the vulnerabilities exposed to more than they intended.
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Jay-Emm
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[sorry for triple post]

In fact it seems that not only was it a vulnerability that was willfully left exposed. But the bandits learned of the vulnerability from them. So they really are doubly culpable.

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lilBuddha
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What I've read leans towards a random attack that found weakness at the NHS as well as many other places around the world. And given that the ransom is generated per computer, from each computer. The low amount of ransom, $300 per computer further backs this.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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Just got to bed. They'll not make a penny out of it. Not on my watch.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Golden Key
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# 1468

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lilBuddha--

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Guess who's still at work sorting the mess out?

The NHS IT staff. And?
And Karl, I think. Also check his post, just above this one, about working late.

[ 13. May 2017, 01:19: Message edited by: Golden Key ]

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Ian Climacus

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I read MS pushed out the updates to prevent this attack in March , so those impacted were slightly behind in their updates.

Still, the people who get off on this are fuckwits of the highest order. It is rather frightening how vulnerable we all are in this connected world.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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The vulnerability addressed by the March patch was not the only vector. Malicious email may have also been imvolved from what I've seen.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:

Still, the people who get off on this are fuckwits of the highest order. It is rather frightening how vulnerable we all are in this connected world.

This doesn't a[pear to be 'people who get off on this', but rather money. Doesn't make them better for that, but it is likely a more accurate motive.

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Ian Climacus

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Thanks for the corrections.
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Ricardus
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The vulnerability addressed by the March patch was not the only vector. Malicious email may have also been imvolved from what I've seen.

Pfft - clearly you didn't apply the necessary hashtags. [Razz]

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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rolyn
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# 16840

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[QB Not sure how you would pull computers out of the equation, it would be difficult to do the job without them. [/QB]

Returning to the filing cabinets of yesteryear isn't going to happen, but if computers are not failsafe then it would be wise to have some backup mechanism like duplicates on paper.

For some reason the computer age makes me think of the Egyptian Pharaohs sealed in their gigantic solid stone structures with all their riches. Some fucker's gonna get in there, it's just a fact.

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Alan Cresswell

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The problem with a duplicate on paper is that if it's in a filing cabinet with your GP that doesn't help if you go into hospital - not only doesn't the hospital have the paper records, adding to those records to record tests & treatments is much harder. The benefit of a computerised system is that information is available wherever you are. Though the benefits of all that interconnectivity is that it opens a risk of something like this affecting more than a few stand-alone computers.

And, there was Amber Rudd on the TV this morning saying that the NHS should have invested in upgrading the computer system (presumably from a £350m per week extra cash source), and should have backed-up records so they can simply be restored (I guess she's never restored a PC from a back-up, and doesn't realise how much time it takes to do that even for a stand-alone PC let alone a national network of the necessary complexity of the NHS). She seems to be trying to outdo Jeremy Hunt in the "haven't a clue about the real world" game.

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Doublethink.
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The government chose not to pay to extend support for windows xp, cos cuts, so patch updates not happening.

They were warned of the risks, by the Labour Party amongst others, last year.

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Jay-Emm
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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
The government chose not to pay to extend support for windows xp, cost cuts, so patch updates not happening.

Penny wise...
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Ricardus
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The problem with a duplicate on paper is that if it's in a filing cabinet with your GP that doesn't help if you go into hospital - not only doesn't the hospital have the paper records, adding to those records to record tests & treatments is much harder. The benefit of a computerised system is that information is available wherever you are. Though the benefits of all that interconnectivity is that it opens a risk of something like this affecting more than a few stand-alone computers.

My other half tells me there are paper backups, at least for the particular records she was unable to access last night, but they really are a last resort, for the reasons you say.
quote:

And, there was Amber Rudd on the TV this morning saying that the NHS should have invested in upgrading the computer system (presumably from a £350m per week extra cash source), and should have backed-up records so they can simply be restored (I guess she's never restored a PC from a back-up, and doesn't realise how much time it takes to do that even for a stand-alone PC let alone a national network of the necessary complexity of the NHS). She seems to be trying to outdo Jeremy Hunt in the "haven't a clue about the real world" game.

Amber Spiv really is a despicable human being. I might have mentioned once or twice that I don't like Jeremy Corbyn's mob, but I'll give them credit that they don't have anyone like her on board. AFAICT, she got the job of Home Secretary so that by comparison Theresa May would look successful.

Amber Spiv's career before entering Parliament.

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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balaam

Making an ass of myself
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, there was Amber Rudd on the TV this morning saying that the NHS should have ... backed-up records so they can simply be restored (I guess she's never restored a PC from a back-up, and doesn't realise how much time it takes to do that even for a stand-alone PC let alone a national network of the necessary complexity of the NHS).

It looks like there were backups which were not immediately available, at least on a health authority basis, whether some GP surgeries have lost data remains to be seen.

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Holy Smoke
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# 14866

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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Don't blame the victim [Frown]

Oh please, cut out the PC crap. It is almost entirely the victims' fault in this case - they have had years and years to make their systems secure (extended support for Windows XP ended two years ago), and to educate themselves about the risks. There just seems to be some endemic problem with senior NHS management, in that they seem to think their jobs are just about ticking the right boxes and collecting their (grossly inflated) salaries, rather than about applying their common sense and judgement to running hospitals and health trusts.
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Doc Tor
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I'd be more tempted to blame the government that terminated the maintenance contract with Microsoft so that XP was kept up to date on security issues.

But whatever floats your boat. You clearly have an axe to grind on this, and I'm glad we were here for you in your hour of need.

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Penny S
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In the case of the person I have been "caring" for, with three different hospitals and two different surgeries involved, none of them have been able to access information about previous treatment. Two of the hospitals have been part of the same organisation and share nursing staff. I'm not convinced about the computer network making things easier.

[ 13. May 2017, 14:00: Message edited by: Penny S ]

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
In the case of the person I have been "caring" for, with three different hospitals and two different surgeries involved, none of them have been able to access information about previous treatment. Two of the hospitals have been part of the same organisation and share nursing staff. I'm not convinced about the computer network making things easier.

A network that had been maintained with the necessary security updates would have been in a far better state.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
In the case of the person I have been "caring" for, with three different hospitals and two different surgeries involved, none of them have been able to access information about previous treatment. Two of the hospitals have been part of the same organisation and share nursing staff. I'm not convinced about the computer network making things easier.

A network that had been maintained with the necessary security updates would have been in a far better state.
Yes, wouldn't it. However it's never that simple. IT professionals do not leave stuff unpatched for fun, for shniggles, or, in the main, out of imcompetence (there's always one, of course). There are a number of factors which can put a delay between patch release and implementation, in any large organisation especially. Of the top of my head:

*legacy software that was written for an OS three generations ago and which needs extensive testing on new OSes or patch levels;
*negotiation of downtime;
*experience of dodgy patches in the past leading to a desire to wait just to make sure MS doesn't pull it the next day;
*company change procedures and policies that simply take time.

All in all, I'm not really surprised a March patch wasn't universally in place.

[ 13. May 2017, 14:31: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

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Schroedinger's cat

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# 64

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quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Don't blame the victim [Frown]

Oh please, cut out the PC crap. It is almost entirely the victims' fault in this case - they have had years and years to make their systems secure (extended support for Windows XP ended two years ago), and to educate themselves about the risks. There just seems to be some endemic problem with senior NHS management, in that they seem to think their jobs are just about ticking the right boxes and collecting their (grossly inflated) salaries, rather than about applying their common sense and judgement to running hospitals and health trusts.
So your holy smoke comes out of your arse does it?

It is a lack of funding. The cost of a proper upgrade is huge - computers that need replacing, software that needs updating, not to mention the whole testing process required. It would have involved huge government investment to do that.

When people say "just keep your equipment up to date" they normally have no clue what that means. It is not the same as upgrading your home PC. It is a far more complex process.

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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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Ricardus
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# 8757

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quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
Oh please, cut out the PC crap.

Proof, if any were needed, that though PC may once have referred to a real concept, it now mostly means 'I am a moron'.

quote:
There just seems to be some endemic problem with senior NHS management, in that they seem to think their jobs are just about ticking the right boxes and collecting their (grossly inflated) salaries, rather than about applying their common sense and judgement to running hospitals and health trusts.
Well, given that the likes of Nissan, Telefónica, Fedex, and Renault have all been affected, it doesn't look like the NHS management is uniquely bad.

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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Boogie

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# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Don't blame the victim [Frown]

Oh please, cut out the PC crap. It is almost entirely the victims' fault in this case - they have had years and years to make their systems secure (extended support for Windows XP ended two years ago), and to educate themselves about the risks. There just seems to be some endemic problem with senior NHS management, in that they seem to think their jobs are just about ticking the right boxes and collecting their (grossly inflated) salaries, rather than about applying their common sense and judgement to running hospitals and health trusts.
You leave your house unlocked and get burgled. The blame remains with the thief, not you. Yes - it's entirely sensible to lock your doors and windows and insurance companies won't pay out if you don't . But the blame lies 100% with the criminal all the same. If they are caught will the law say 'ah, but he was entitled to your stuff, after all, you didn't lock it up.

PC? Means nothing.

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Jay-Emm
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# 11411

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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
You leave your house unlocked and get burgled. The blame remains with the thief, not you. Yes - it's entirely sensible to lock your doors and windows and insurance companies won't pay out if you don't . But the blame lies 100% with the criminal all the same. If they are caught will the law say 'ah, but he was entitled to your stuff, after all, you didn't lock it up.

PC? Means nothing. [/QB]

You promise to look after your neighbours house for the weekend in exchange for something decent (enough that you had to compete to look after the house). However sorting out the keys is too much bother so you continuously leave it unlocked (after all it's not your fault or your house). It gets burgled.
I think the neighbours entitled to take both you (for criminal negligence) and the burgleriser (for burgling) to court [that's more on the government rather than the NHS]

[ 13. May 2017, 16:05: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]

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lilBuddha
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# 14333

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I am not an IT professional though some of my work has been IT adjacent. So view this post through that filter.
  • Those who have neglected to buy stone for the walls, should not complain when the barbarians come through the holes. Which is exactly what Rudd is doing.
  • Even the best constructed fortress is vulnerable if someone opens the gates. No matter the level of protection, it is difficult to protect from inside attacks, which is essentially what happens when someone clicks an infected link in an e-mail.
  • Win XP and legacy software [brick wall] Also, in part, a funding issue. Legacy software will always be a problem, but it does take money to upgrade. Money that has been bled out by the Tories. The flip side of this is people. People don't like change and it can be difficult to get them to accept it. Change also may cause its own problems.
  • Large organisations (public and private) will never¹ have the best in protection because of they are large.²
  • Protecting against malware is always playing with a handicap. You can know what attacks have been used, but you cannot know what will be used. There will always be vulnerability.

¹Yeah, I know, superlatives. There will be exceptions, but this is true enough to be a rule.
²This also offers protections I was going to explain the dynamics, but that is definitely its own thread. Suffice to say that small offers its own issues.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
You leave your house unlocked and get burgled. The blame remains with the thief, not you. Yes - it's entirely sensible to lock your doors and windows and insurance companies won't pay out if you don't . But the blame lies 100% with the criminal all the same.

Well, no. Percentages don't mean anything here, I do wish people would not use zero-sum terminology where it does not apply.
If your home is robbed because you did not lock it, the thief is completely to blame for his actions. And you are to blame for not locking it. His sentence should not be reduced, nor his guilt mitigated in any way. It still remains your fault as well.

In this case, it is more that the government wouldn't buy a decent lock of the door to the NHS. The lock they had wasn't sufficient to the task.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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mr cheesy
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# 3330

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It would be incredibly surprising* if patient records were not affected, as is being claimed.

Malware gets into individual computers and is able to spread into the wider network. How can that not have affected central records systems?

* of course, I know nothing. I am not an IT professional

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arse

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It would be incredibly surprising* if patient records were not affected, as is being claimed.

Malware gets into individual computers and is able to spread into the wider network. How can that not have affected central records systems?

* of course, I know nothing. I am not an IT professional

By 'affected' they mean compromised confidentiality.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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mr cheesy
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Ah OK I suppose that makes sense - the malware is making the data inaccessible, not public.

Sorry, my mistake.

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arse

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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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The claim, as I understand it, is that patient records remain confidential and privacy has not been compromised. There will, however, be impact on those records - entries made since the last back-up may be lost, for example. The particular bit of criminality that caused these problems has locked access to data held on a large number of computers (potentially including central records if servers were compromised), it hasn't copied any data to another location.

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Amanda B. Reckondwythe

Dressed for Church
# 5521

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
IT professionals do not leave stuff unpatched for fun . . . . There are a number of factors which can put a delay between patch release and implementation. . . .

*experience of dodgy patches in the past leading to a desire to wait just to make sure MS doesn't pull it the next day;

Having had experience with applying a patch that broke more than it fixed, I can second that.

Add to this the effort it takes to find downtime during which to install the patches. True, large organizations probably have redundant servers that can shoulder the load of servers taken down to be patched, but smaller organizations don't have that luxury. Unless management is convinced that downtime during which to install patches is necessary, the IT staff are powerless.

And no patch is going to prevent users from opening e-mail that launches infected files, regardless of how many times they've been warned not to do so.

As for backups -- the purpose of backups is to enable restoration in the case of catastrophic failure. To complain that it takes a long time to restore a system from backups begs the question. Yes, it takes a long time, but that's the name of the game. Of course, depending on when the backups were made, you're going to lose a day or two of work, but that's better than losing the entire work product.

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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

As for backups -- the purpose of backups is to enable restoration in the case of catastrophic failure. To complain that it takes a long time to restore a system from backups begs the question. Yes, it takes a long time, but that's the name of the game. Of course, depending on when the backups were made, you're going to lose a day or two of work, but that's better than losing the entire work product.

It sounds like one needs a backup which is physically disconnected from the desktops and the internet to avoid spreading the malware. I wonder how many now have backups like that.

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arse

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Holy Smoke
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# 14866

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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
[/qb]

You leave your house unlocked and get burgled. The blame remains with the thief, not you. Yes - it's entirely sensible to lock your doors and windows and insurance companies won't pay out if you don't . But the blame lies 100% with the criminal all the same. If they are caught will the law say 'ah, but he was entitled to your stuff, after all, you didn't lock it up.[/QUOTE]

The criminal is responsible for committing the crime, but it's not his fault that you didn't take sensible precautions, it's your fault.

quote:
PC? Means nothing.
In this case, it means that your are applying the meme "the victim is never at fault", which is a political statement, not a statement of everyday fact. In the case of the ransomware attack, the fault is almost entirely with the victims, because they failed to take basic precautions.

[ 13. May 2017, 16:39: Message edited by: Holy Smoke ]

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Holy Smoke
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Well, given that the likes of Nissan, Telefónica, Fedex, and Renault have all been affected, it doesn't look like the NHS management is uniquely bad.

I would guess that the commercial organizations have either been slow rolling out the patch, or that the patch has been rolled out, but individual workstations haven't been rebooted. What makes the NHS situation uniquely bad is that a) they have had four years to get their systems upgraded (or longer - Windows 7 was released in 2009), and b) their warped sense of priorities, whereby the units affected apparently considered that such an upgrade was purely option, if they happened to have the funds available. It should also be noted that many trusts and hospitals did get their act together, and consequently weren't affected.
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