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Cyberattack Hits England's National Health Service With Ransom Demands (theguardian.com)
Hospitals across England have been hit by a large-scale cyber-attack, the NHS has confirmed, which has locked staff out of their computers and forced many trusts to divert emergency patients. The IT systems of NHS sites across the country appear to have been simultaneously hit, with a pop-up message demanding a ransom in exchange for access to the PCs. NHS Digital said it was aware of the problem and would release more details soon. Details of patient records and appointment schedules, as well as internal phone lines and emails, have all been rendered inaccessible. From a report: "The investigation is at an early stage but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor. At this stage we do not have any evidence that patient data has been accessed. We will continue to work with affected organisations to confirm this. NHS Digital is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre, the Department of Health and NHS England to support affected organisations and to recommend appropriate mitigations. "This attack was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organisations from across a range of sectors. "Our focus is on supporting organisations to manage the incident swiftly and decisively, but we will continue to communicate with NHS colleagues and will share more information as it becomes available." NPR adds: The problem erupted around 12:30 p.m. local time, the IT worker says, with a number of email servers crashing. Other services soon went down -- and then, the unidentified NHS worker says, "A bitcoin virus pop-up message had been introduced on to the network asking users to pay $300 to be able to access their PCs. You cannot get past this screen." The attack was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organizations from across a range of sectors, it appears. The report adds: Images that were posted online of the NHS pop-up look nearly identical to pop-up ransomware windows that hit Spain's Telefonica, a powerful attack that forced the large telecom to order employees to disconnect their computers from its network -- resorting to an intercom system to relay messages. Telefonica, Spain's largest ISP, has told its employees to shut down their computers.
Update: BBC is reporting that similar attacks are being reported in the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan today.
Update: BBC is reporting that similar attacks are being reported in the UK, US, China, Russia, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan today.
"Ransomware demanded"???
So wait. They've demanded that 16 hospitals to give them ransomware?
Isn't the correct business model to give the hospitals the ransomware instead, and then demand ransom?
Is this an altruistic cyberattack? The hospitals give them the ransomware, which they install, and then they give the hospitals money so that the hospitals will send the the unlock code, and they can then move onto the next hospital?
I mean, as an approach to medical billing, it's kind of .. disruptive, but...
Don't give it to them! If you give them ransomware, they're just going to use it to start attacking people and demanding ransoms from their victims.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
"I've come across this virus. Nasty virus. Really, really bad virus. We're going to stop this virus, and we're going to make Mexico pay for it."
Isn't that what telephone sanitizers are there for? Maybe we shouldn't have put them all on the first ark?
Beautiful, have you ever considered a career in politics?