Ops-Normal.org

Today's cyber attack has affected 47 countries. This is pretty horrendous and obviously well orchestrated.

I haven't heard that it has impacted any travel/airline sites, but there are huge vulnerabilities and I would not be surprised to hear that it has.

As many as 100 countries now reported to be involved. Interestingly enough, Russia was one of the hardest hit. Perhaps this will lessen suspicion that they were responsible. One report states the virus was stolen from the NSA.

I suspect that Russians, but not an official or government entity, were behind this.
Let's eliminate the world's biggest scammers, Nigerians (and other Africans), as they're too stupid.
It really only leaves Chinese or Russians as those who might have the resources and knowledge to carry out such a well planned and coordinated attack. Possibly Indians but I don't think so. Pure speculation, but I am sure we will know soon.

Has anyone established yet which OS the NHS uses and whether it was patched up to date?

Apparently some sectors and units use XP, which is no longer officially supported by MS.

I've just had an email from my loony 'conspiracy theorist' friend, who has sod all to do in his life except watch daytime TV and read conspiracy theories.

Mate, my guess is that Microsoft is behind this to get everyone to upgrade to Win 10, think about it, nobody else would have the tech and knowhow to do it.

Or perhaps it's Jerzy Korbinski to prove that it wouldn't have happened with Liebour in charge as they would have spent enough money to ensure that all systems were proofed against attacks!

which is no longer officially supported by MS.

I think XP support is still 'available' for some flavours of XP, although the basic OS can no longer be updated. I would place a bet that the NHS is still using 'vanilla' XP.

From 'The Independent', how's this for timing?

"'The hackers holding hospitals to ransom', published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Wednesday, described NHS organisations as the “ideal victims” of cyber attacks, and said dozens of smaller hacks had happened in the past."

It is reported that NHS units have often paid 'ransom' demands to unlock hacked systems.

From December 2016
http://www.silicon.co.uk/security/nhs-h ... -xp-201761

An interesting snippet from the Grauniad
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ber-attack

Many many years ago, it was possible to give the appearance of all the data files being encrypted by tweaking values in the Master Boot Record on an HDD. I suspect something similar has been effected by the virus, as t would take considerable time to actually encrypt all the files on a machine. The MBR describes how the data is stored on the device. Change that and the data becomes indecipherable, until the MBR is changed back again.

Mate, my guess is that Microsoft is behind this to get everyone to upgrade to Win 10, think about it, nobody else would have the tech and knowhow to do it.

Capetonian; I noted, with more than a little amusement, when having a Medical check at a Hospital in Hokkaido around this time last year that the Hospital Computer systems still ran Windows 7.
And I was informed that they had no intention of 'updating' at any time for the foreseeable future.

As do I here!

In a most unusual (and unexpected!) move, M$ have issued a patch to XP.

I suspect Jermy *unt will be geting some probing questions on why the NHS is still using XP. All on his watch - M$ 'support' cancelled in 2015 due to 'good progress' in migrating to a 'new' OS (not). This is money wasted that the NHS can ill afford (pun intended) and the awful effect on peoples' lives should lie at his door.

UPDATE:
'NHS Digital' have issued a statement which is less bleak than the above:
"While the vast majority are running contemporary systems, we can confirm that the number of devices within the NHS that reportedly use XP has fallen to 4.7 per cent, with this figure continuing to decrease."

Never-the-less, it does not explain the widespread collapse of NHS IT systems, since W10 is reported to be 'immune' to the hack (at the moment!).

Boac wrote:
Never-the-less, it does not explain the widespread collapse of NHS IT systems, since W10 is reported to be 'immune' to the hack (at the moment!).

If up to date.

Only going on one of the 'talking heads' (probably Rory Puffing-Jones of the BBC...) who said it 'did not affect 10'. I think, however, you are right - it was 'patched' on W10 in March.