England’s NHS PCs Under Cyber Attack

Tags

cyber security, malware, windows

Note: the NHS is England’s medical/health system

The NHS has been hit as part of a global cyber-attack that threw hospitals and businesses in the UK and across the world into chaos.

The unprecedented attack on Friday affected 12 countries and at least 16 NHS trusts in the UK, compromising British IT systems that underpin patient safety. Staff across the NHS were locked out of their computers and trusts had to divert emergency patients.

…

“If large numbers of NHS organisations failed to act on a critical notice from Microsoft two months ago, then whose fault is that?” Anderson said. “This is the sort of thing for which the secretary of state should get roasted in parliament.”

Alan Woodward, visiting professor of computing at the University of Surrey, said that the attack’s success “is likely to be because some organisations have either not applied the patch released by Microsoft, or they are using outdated operating systems”.

Amazingly, NHS’s failure to maintain their Windows PCs is the reason they are in trouble today.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/12/hospitals-across-england-hit-by-large-scale-cyber-attack

Here’s some more info: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/a-massive-ransomware-attack-on-the-nhs/526524/

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Bee on Flower

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bee, flower, macro photography, pollen

Bee on Flower 1, originally uploaded by dagnyg.

Taken in our front yard with a 200mm Nikkor macro lens. You can see specs of pollen on the bee. I like the detail in the wings too.

April Fool’s Day, Conficker Worm Edition

Tags

april fool's day, conficker worm

Will the dreaded Conficker worm, which has infected millions of Windows PCs, bring about the end of the Windows world today?

Here’s a good description of the problem from cnet.com.

My guess:  No. But there’s likely to be some pain for Windows users who have not applied all the latest patches or have not kept their anti-virus apps up to date. See why I like my Mac so much?