4 ms·
Designing expensive vertical market hardware that connects to the Internet around an embedded copy of Windows that never, ever gets updates is obviously insane,
by davidgerard 9y ago
Designing expensive vertical market hardware that connects to the Internet around an embedded copy of Windows that never, ever gets updates is obviously insane, and yet that's the world we live in. It's well outside hospitals, etc - this is a world in which the SCADA worm was even possible.
More specifically on the NHS, it appears there was a decision in 2015 not to update some OSes because of Conservative budget cuts. I'm trying to track down details.
- benaadams 9y ago26 May 2015 "Thousands of computers still running Windows XP at risk after Government Digital Service opted not to renew support in April" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/26/uk-government-pcs-open-to-hackers-as-paid-windows-xp-support-ends https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/26/uk-govern...
- davidgerard 9y agoyeah. They finally said "look, get off this thing" which is fair enough, but they then cut funding to the bone, and IT is always the first thing skimped on. I'm told by a friend in IT in an NHS Trust that the NHS actually came off quite lightly - all the affected systems were front-end PCs that don't store patient data locally, the patient data was safe on back end databases, so he spent Saturday reimaging a few hundred PCs and not one satoshi of ransom was paid to the attackers. Hopefully they won't get complacent about the bullet they dodged. (Ahh, who am I kidding.)