NHS Computer System Hacked

[upthecreekyetagain]

With all the potential commercial victims available what sort of twisted individual or group decides to hold the NHS to ransom risking the lives of thousands?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-cyber-attack-hospitals-hack-england-emergency-pat...

[cee-dee]

But is it anything to do with "The Government"? Might it not have something to do with local Health Boards being top-heavy with loads of hangers-on creaming loads of money off "the system"? Here, the Health board "Management Structure" is comprised of 75 people and that's not taking in to consideration their "office staff".

Another thing, according to "the news" there's 248 hospitals in England, 48 of them suffered the attack. How come the other 200 were not affected? No hospitals in Wales were affected.

There's an awful lot of money floating around the NHS and where there's lots of money, there's plenty of empire-building people looking to cream some off. Planned expenditure for 2016/17 was £120.611bn according to NHS figures.

Many years back I remember Enoch saying "The Government's got no money." What he meant was, there is no miraculous appearance of money in the Government's coffers, the money comes from "The Taxpayers".

[j_uk643]

The attacks appear to have been across a number of countries, and business/public sector institutions
including it's reported Nissan here in the UK, Telefonica, Fedex and probably many more who will not confirm such
Obviously as a health service provider, the NHS implications are of a different nature to general commerce


According to the Government less than 5% of the NHS systems use xp as a platform
Microsoft stopped support for xp, a system dating from 2001, a few years ago, such that no further updates would be provided as a matter of routine
In response to the current publicity it's reported Microsoft has released a specific patch relating to the latest attacks

Specific purchases of 'patches' were made from Microsoft for about a year by the NHS, before being stopped by government.This expenditure  was the result of specific govt reviews over IT security.The position as put forward by the Defence Secretary is that funding made available as a result of security reviews was withdrawn in this instance on the basis that they wanted those still using xp to migrate to more recent platforms.It would seem that in hindsight this wasn't a good idea, and that transitional arrangements might have been a more prudent course

A survey by skynews of NHS trusts spending on securing data found that seven of them, serving more than 2 million people spent nothing at all!!
The average spending across 92 trusts was just £22,000 annually, whilst a number of others couldn't/didn't want to quantify their spending
Unfortunately migration takes money and resources, and there are those who whinge endlessly about such expenditure, one day, then bemoan the lack of it the next, usually after the event.
The facts are that when you are dealing with a large organisation, and expenditure in billions, it takes many people across numerous disciplines to run it effectively, and not just direct medical staff.Im yet to find comparable organisations in the private sector who exist without managers and other essential support staff, but in gaga land apparently, it's possible

Anecdotal evidence it may be, but a number of reports seem to suggest that in times past ,some consultantS ran diaries which left operating theatres underused on certain days eg Fridays in some areas, and that since they are probably the highest paid operational group within the NHS, it would be better if their time was spent on clinical rather than non clinical matters, thus delegating diaries to administration would be cheaper, more efficient and better use clinician time

The govt is ultimately the provider of NHS services and undertakes strategic reviews including IT security in a way health trusts cannot .In that regard govt role ought to be obvious to all

Hopefully no one is fatally affected by these incidents, and I understand most, but not all trust systems are restored and operational.Having effective systems capable of dealing with external threats should be essential. If the survey mentioned above is anything to go by, these external threats were seen as unimportant in a culture and media keen to downplay the needs for such non direct clinical expenditure


It's been reported that parts of the UK defence systems eg Trident also may be vulnerable and that some tools used were developed by NSA
The US has/had one of the largest military capabilities across the globe, and large internal,and external security operations.All these systems, procedures and resources were effectively defeated by a small group of not too sophisticated terrorists on 9/11, because of failures at almost every level of national defence and security.Some 3,000 died as a direct result, in events played out in real time across the globe.Over a thousand of those who died are still unaccounted for in terms of even the smallest body part/bone fragment.Accountability seems to have disappeared, and the resultant war expenditures measured in trillions of dollars

Spending earlier can often mean reducing the amount spent later .In medical terms, it's called preventative medicine

[j_uk643]

The govt don't have any money. Actually they do. They even create some of it electronically. As for tax revenue, if anyone doubt's it belongs to the govt, perhaps they should stop paying local/national taxes, assuming they do in the first place of course.

Without the infrastructure provided by taxes, in terms of roads, schools, health etc, individuals and businesses could not operate in the same way, or make the same money. Having custody of money doesn't equate to having legal title

[cottage-garden.1278]

The other scammers are taking advantage of the situation.

I got a phone call this morning (Wednesday).  She was claiming to be phoning from BT and was telling me that my computer had been infected and that BT were going to be cutting off my service tomorrow.  As usual she wanted me to turn my computer on etc.

That was the first cold call of this type that I have had for the last 6 months at least.