NHS hospitals across England hit by large-scale cyber-attack

[Brighton Mod]

I think if you read this article, you might find it enlightening. There are many factors at play.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39915440

"Updating your computer if you're an individual is a piece of cake, but for a network the size of Britain's National Health Service? Tough - time-consuming, expensive and complex."

But no. According to you, it's easy.

Ah the BBC, that must be true then, you appear to be attempting to defend the indefensable. The headlines are gone, news has moved on, Corbyn has pledged £8 bn of tax payers money to cyber security, that must have been a long term labour policy of about 3 days, and the fallout is now minimal. Clearly it wasn't Tough-time-consuming, expensive and complex to 80% of NHS trust, just for 20% of them.

The article does not frighten me, just like the millenium bug didn't, but it demonstrates that those employed to protect such security issues failed spectacularly and failed ti implement the discipline needed to act when they should.

Its now yesterdays news, you have an opinion based on a BBC internet article and I have an opinion based on working in the business, lets just agree to differ, hanging it on the government is just too simplistic.

 

[Silk]

I didn't "hang it on the government". I said the government bears some of the responsibility. Which Andrew Marr also said to the proven liar Michael Fallon. And I do not have "an opinion based on a BBC article".

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[heathgate]

Ah the BBC, that must be true then, you appear to be attempting to defend the indefensable. The headlines are gone, news has moved on, Corbyn has pledged £8 bn of tax payers money to cyber security, that must have been a long term labour policy of about 3 days, and the fallout is now minimal. Clearly it wasn't Tough-time-consuming, expensive and complex to 80% of NHS trust, just for 20% of them.

The article does not frighten me, just like the millenium bug didn't, but it demonstrates that those employed to protect such security issues failed spectacularly and failed ti implement the discipline needed to act when they should.

Its now yesterdays news, you have an opinion based on a BBC internet article and I have an opinion based on working in the business, lets just agree to differ, hanging it on the government is just too simplistic.

Upgrading beyond XP isn't a big deal in isolation. However, in a large organisation, the key concerns will be coexistence with all the other software used in the NHS, and backwards compatability with applications that need to still work on older OS. Testing, and defect mitigation activities will take a year or two to clear up before roll out to live.

It's a huge undertaking to sweep through a large organisation like the NHS..... and very costly.

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[Yoda]

Upgrading beyond XP isn't a big deal in isolation. However, in a large organisation, the key concerns will be coexistence with all the other software used in the NHS, and backwards compatability with applications that need to still work on older OS. Testing, and defect mitigation activities will take a year or two to clear up before roll out to live.

It's a huge undertaking to sweep through a large organisation like the NHS..... and very costly.

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Yay! Someone who knows what they are talking about. Couldn't find the best way of trying to explain myself but this is superbly put.

 

[beorhthelm]

Upgrading beyond XP isn't a big deal in isolation. However, in a large organisation, the key concerns will be coexistence with all the other software used in the NHS, and backwards compatability with applications that need to still work on older OS. Testing, and defect mitigation activities will take a year or two to clear up before roll out to live.

It's a huge undertaking to sweep through a large organisation like the NHS..... and very costly.

i wonder why they dont virtualise those XP applications. tools for this are very well known and stable.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

i wonder why they dont virtualise those XP applications. tools for this are very well known and stable.

I'm currently working to "virtualise" HMRC systems - you don't "virtualise" applications, you move them to a visualised infrastructure..

Also the concept of an "XP Application" is not appropriate. XP is a 32bit MS Windows operating system - so any x86 [8 / 16 / 32 bit] application will run on it. The only application incompatibilities are with Win 7 / 8 / 8.1 & 10 64 bit as these won't support the old 8 bit and 16 bit application compiled code.

Most / all application servers will run a server version of Windows - e.g. 2003 / 2008 / 2012 - I'd be surprised [and horrified] if there are any corporate application servers running on XP [which is a desktop O/S].

Many of HMRC servers are now moving to Red Hat ....

 

[beorhthelm]

I'm currently working to "virtualise" HMRC systems - you don't "virtualise" applications, you move them to a visualised infrastructure..

im well aware of the technical differences, just using a common term for the process. and your incompatibility list over looked IE6, much of the reason for legacy XP apps is dependency on components in IE they changed or removed in later versions.

 

[Silk]

Upgrading beyond XP isn't a big deal in isolation. However, in a large organisation, the key concerns will be coexistence with all the other software used in the NHS, and backwards compatability with applications that need to still work on older OS. Testing, and defect mitigation activities will take a year or two to clear up before roll out to live.

It's a huge undertaking to sweep through a large organisation like the NHS..... and very costly.

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Thank you, God.[emoji2]

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[Buzzer]

Upgrading beyond XP isn't a big deal in isolation. However, in a large organisation, the key concerns will be coexistence with all the other software used in the NHS, and backwards compatability with applications that need to still work on older OS. Testing, and defect mitigation activities will take a year or two to clear up before roll out to live.

It's a huge undertaking to sweep through a large organisation like the NHS..... and very costly.

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Completely agree with you but do you know how far down the road various trusts are with this? I've no inside knowledge of this but have worked for various large public sector IT departments and I would have thought that replacing an operating system that was no longer being supported would have been an integral part of the objectives of all of the IT depts for these trusts for some years now. I would also have expected some sort of temporary extra safety measure to ring-fence the systems that were most at risk and contained the most sensitive data whilst the upgrade was being carried out.

 

[Brighton Mod]

Upgrading beyond XP isn't a big deal in isolation. However, in a large organisation, the key concerns will be coexistence with all the other software used in the NHS, and backwards compatability with applications that need to still work on older OS. Testing, and defect mitigation activities will take a year or two to clear up before roll out to live.

It's a huge undertaking to sweep through a large organisation like the NHS..... and very costly.

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So why did 80% of trusts remain unaffected? Its not a technical question its an obvious observation. Clearly only too difficult and costly to the 20% who were caught out by this.

 

[heathgate]

So why did 80% of trusts remain unaffected? Its not a technical question its an obvious observation. Clearly only too difficult and costly to the 20% who were caught out by this.

More a question of the senior management of those trusts making the call to delay or cancel plans to roll out an upgrade. Non IT people making poor calls on IT issues.

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