Hospital computers across England shut down by cyberattack

a reply to: grey580

A joke is a joke but you don't let the air out of an ambulances tyres..

I'm calling false flag

Reports coming in from arpund the world of the same thing happening today

A  massive ransomware campaign appears to have attacked a number of organisations around the world.

Screenshots of a well known program that locks computers and demands a payment in Bitcoin have been shared online by parties claiming to be affected.

There have been reports of infections in the UK, USA, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan and others.

It is not yet clear whether the attacks are all connected.

www.bbc.com...

Several experts monitoring the situation have linked the attacks to vulnerabilities released by a group known as The Shadow Brokers, which recently claimed to have dumped hacking tools stolen from the NSA.

More to follow...

a reply to: kamatty

Oh great they lost the hacking tools and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass. MORONS!

Edit: Wait if they knew of the stolen hacking tools why has nobody fixed the vulnerable exploits?

originally posted by: 0racle
a reply to: trollz

How is this not a terrorist attack?

It's not.. its probably a team of hackers that have developed this with a means to.make money.
It's highly unlikely they have targeted the nhs specifically.
And these people are probably thinking s**t now because they know some very capable people will be looking for them.
I.e the British government. .

originally posted by: dan121212
who hacks a health service, lol this close to an election, i guess this is the Tories trying to scare you into voting them in

It's unlikely they hacked the health service.. This is an email malware scam that has affected the nhs. Someone just opened an email.
Not sure why the filters didn't pick it up though..

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

My wife is a nurse, I get that. But your going to turn away emergency care patients, possible resulting in death, because you can't scan the bar codes? Don't they have pens and paper anymore? WTF.

a reply to: GreenGunther

You know, if the grid ever goes down, we are done for.

a reply to: trollz
This is my nightmare scenario!
Someone has to stop these people.
They get away with this because they jump boarders and this is how they escape the law.

They are terrorist!!!!!
They are blackmailers!!!!!
Nothing more than robbers!!!!
SCUM!!!!!!

Can't work like real people. Use computer code to steal.

Do NOT get me started.

It's not a cyber attack it's randsomware.
Easy to make and to infiltrate any system.
The NHS systems are a joke for security anyway. Anyone with access to an open PC and a USB stick can plant the malware.

a reply to: GreenGunther

True story.

The guy I know really does know the Chief because he's a neighbor.

And he sold him some bitcoins in order to pay the ransom.

a reply to: trollz

As soon as I saw this story I thought this is one of the pre-election false flags we've been warned to watch out for.

What effect would this be likely to have on voting?

a reply to: UKWO1Phot

Even if they didn't have access they could just send a bunch of Phishing emails and someone is bound to click on the infected PDF.

-JT

Looks like this is eternal blue.. which is a hack that was developed for the American intelligence services.. loads of companies are affected now.. including santander, telephonica, fed ex..

a reply to: shooterbrody

www.govtech.com...

a reply to: shooterbrody

I don't know about that; not to be argumentative, but I take any pronouncements from Gov't agencies with a huge grain of salt.......they're usually entirely self-serving.

Here's an interesting article about the situation done by an analyst with the Deep State advisory group, the Council on Foreign Relations: www.cfr.org...

He (the author) notes, on the one hand:

Carrying out a cyberattack that successfully disrupts grid operations would be extremely difficult but not impossible. Such an attack would require months of planning, significant resources, and a team with a broad range of expertise. Although cyberattacks by terrorist and criminal organizations cannot be ruled out, the capabilities necessary to mount a major operation against the U.S. power grid make potential state adversaries the principal threat.

Then he notes:

In 2014, Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, testified before the U.S. Congress that China and a few other countries likely had the capability to shut down the U.S. power grid. Iran, as an emergent cyber actor, could acquire such capability. Rapid digitization combined with low levels of investment in cybersecurity and a weak regulatory regime suggest that the U.S. power system is as vulnerable—if not more vulnerable—to a cyberattack as systems in other parts of the world.

Check it out, its an interesting article.

originally posted by: Misterlondon
It's unlikely they hacked the health service..

No, they really did hack the NHS and numerous of organisations using an Intel business chip backdoor exploit

Red alert! Intel patches remote execution hole that's been hidden in chips since 2010

That's been around for 10 years but it was only recently, discovered and gone public in March

There have been reports of infections in as many as 74 countries, including the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy and Taiwan.

Many security researchers are linking the incidents together.

One cyber-security researcher tweeted that he had detected many thousands of cases of the ransomware, known as WannaCry and variants of that name.

BBC.com, technology - Ransomware infections reported worldwide.

Not that hospitals use the most up to date computer systems but basic security training should be mandatory. No USB sticks, do not use the email system for non-business use, no surfing the internet, etc. We do not allow automount of USB sticks for example. I figured out I can pull the network cable and do it manually but have only needed to do so once to transfer some of files I created between computers.

I'm glad I no longer work at the local hospital! I would have been tasked with manning the phone lines. Oh gawd!!! How dreadful that must be. That helpless feeling. Not much you can do either. How many man-hours (and woman too! I know) will this take? Reimaging all those systems!

This is one reason you keep important files on a network share and not on your local hard drive.

a reply to: TobyFlenderson
You don't.

Worked in the medical field for over 40 years. The majority of them without aide of a computer. A good medical history helps but an emergency requires the presenting problem to be addressed. Once the patient is stabilized you can worry about the rest.

I remember way back in my early years when I worked shock trauma. I was angsting over setting up a sterile prep for an emergency surgery. The doctor told me, "Don't worry about that, we have to get in there." "We will worry about infection if he lives."

That about sums it up. Computers sometimes makes us lazy and may have some benefit, but should never stand in the way of good medical care.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

"Don't worry about that, we have to get in there." "We will worry about infection if he lives."

Reminds me of what the doctor said, hands in pockets, when he looked down on my Grandfather choking on mustard gas in France.

"If he's still alive tomorrow we'll move him down the line."

a reply to: Kester
I hear you but triage is not easy. Sometimes the call you make may seem heartless, but when time is of the essence and resources are nonexistent, you have to make the tough call.

No medical person I have ever worked with has ever enjoyed playing God. I have seen times where even the atheist prayed, and we live every day with the decisions we have to make.