Cyber attack on NHS

[dingit]

This doesn't look good.

So each organisation is likely to end up paying out 400k. Care will suffer in the short term and the long term

I have an irrational hatred of GoFundMe/JustGiving accounts but you know if someone wants to set one up for the NHS trusts affected by this then I'm all for chipping in (albeit a small amount).

what would happen if they just not pay? I hate this shit and god knows who the money is going to!
I really feel we need to put more into our cyber security. this was only a matter of time

god knows who the money is going to - This is one of the most worrying things about it! It could be going to a terrorist organisation for all we know? and the amount of systems/companies etc this has affected I'm sure some people will have paid up out of sheer desperation.

terrorist organisation was my initial horror aswell. it's being reported in a few countries aswell.

I imagine GCHQ will be searching for them with some urgency.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4500080/NHS-computer-systems-phones-cyber-attack.html

"At least 10 payments of around 300 US dollars have been made to bitcoin accounts that the hackers have asked to be paid this afternoon."

There will be a way to fix it without paying.

Organisations (and people) should have disaster recovery plans for this kind of thing. I sincerely hope the NHS does!

Never assume the tech will always work.

Our hospital paid last time.

It might well be cheaper to pay up than fix. Of course that's only true if you have the will, the funds and the process to do your security properly.

Our hospital paid last time - I think hospitals are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they do then they could be funding terrorism or other criminal groups. If they don't then patients could die and the longer it's left unfixed then the more it's going to cost them in lost operations/appointments etc

But why would a hacker pay up? That seems weirdly honest of them.

Was that to me Fuck?
It would cost the hospital less to pay up the ransom to get the files unencrypted than it would cost the hospital to fix the problem as a one off by restoring everything back to 6.58 GMT today.
This might be worth it if they had confidence that they could prevent further attacks.

This isn't a targetted attack, this is a complete failure on the part of the NHS to keep their security systems up to date. Microsoft had a security patch for this ransomware a couple of months ago - someone needs to explain why it wasn't applied.

It's random and across about 20 countries so far and all sorts of organisations. Nobody has deliberately attacked the NHS.

At least 10 payments of around 300 US dollars have been made to bitcoin accounts that the hackers have asked to be paid this afternoon

Those coins are tainted though. Going to be hard for the hackers to cash them

Voice and Titty are right, it's not a deliberate attack on the NHS, it's an attack on unpatched systems of which there are many, many in such a large organisation.

The bigger issue is why there are so many systems that are in that state in such an important organisation.

Because the IT companies that provide the infrastructure hold the NHS to ransom over software updates and patching. It's too expensive to do often enough.

Public sector procurement is a joke.

They just said 78 countries on the news! Yikes! I asked computer boffin bruv was this likely to be some spotty 6th formers and he said no way, it's dark web shit.

There was me worrying about being blown up and actually, this is a much bigger threat to the running of society.

Yeah, talking to my DH and he said there was a deal a while ago with Microsoft to provide v cheap licenses to the NHS and they don't have the resources to upgrade/keep things patched.

Add in the obscure software programs that are vital but haven't been updated in 10 years that still run on things like XP or worse and it's a recipe for disaster.

I hope to god they've got exceptionally good backups.

I was in a hospital a few weeks ago and was really surprised to see XP machines running. Don't know why thinking about it. There are bits of defence running on it.
*This has been reported in the media so not OSA.

One bitcoin is currently worth £1,355.30. So 300 of them is £409,590.

They aren't asking for 300 bitcoins. They are asking for $300-worth of bitcoins to unlock each PC.

I was at a hospital appointment yesterday and the consultant was using windows 10. The hospital hasn't been affected. So I wonder whether the operating system is playing a big factor in this.

For those that pay up, will the hack have left a backdoor into their machine or will it be a case of pay and then update the OS to stop it happening again?

Pay and updates