NHS Cyber attacks

[manxman1980]

1 hour ago, RIchard Britten said:

Who was the Home Secretary in charge of Cyber Security at the time....you May know the answer...

I am sure that they will have taken a Strong and Stable approach.

[woolley]

1 hour ago, RIchard Britten said:

Who was the Home Secretary in charge of Cyber Security at the time....you May know the answer...

So the Home Secretary should be micromanaging this when there are so many hugely expensive layers of management in the NHS? That's a ridiculous attempt to score political points. As I said, bad management, (and far too much of it at that!)

[RIchard Britten]

Just now, woolley said:

So the Home Secretary should be micromanaging this when there are so many hugely expensive layers of management in the NHS? That's a ridiculous attempt to score political points. As I said, bad management, (and far too much of it at that!)

The buck stops with the Home Secretary when it comes to Cyber Security.  Especially for something that would have such a "global" effect.

This exploit hasn't just affected the NHS (guess what Trident runs on...)

[woolley]

1 minute ago, RIchard Britten said:

The buck stops with the Home Secretary when it comes to Cyber Security.  Especially for something that would have such a "global" effect.

This exploit hasn't just affected the NHS (guess what Trident runs on...)

Well that's life today isn't it? Totally dependent on systems, everything running on a wing and a prayer and not just in government. I see example of it all the time in business. "What would happen if that suddenly disappeared off the cloud?" "Errrrr. It won't." One day it might.

Still a lazy attempt to make a vacuous political point though. Enough money has been poured into that black hole for everything to be shiny and new. Problem is too many very fat and unproductive snouts in the trough.

[Bobbie Bobster]

6 minutes ago, woolley said:

So the Home Secretary should be micromanaging this when there are so many hugely expensive layers of management in the NHS? That's a ridiculous attempt to score political points. As I said, bad management, (and far too much of it at that!)

No, the UK Government, including the Home and Health Secretaries should have renewed the WIndows XP extended support contract that they nixed in April 2015, thereby increasing the risk that an unpatched vulnerability in many legacy systems and pieces of equipment running XP would lead to an event such as last week's.

[RIchard Britten]

Just now, woolley said:

Well that's life today isn't it? Totally dependent on systems, everything running on a wing and a prayer and not just in government. I see example of it all the time in business. "What would happen if that suddenly disappeared off the cloud?" "Errrrr. It won't." One day it might.

Still a lazy attempt to make a vacuous political point though. Enough money has been poured into that black hole for everything to be shiny and new. Problem is too many very fat and unproductive snouts in the trough.

Cyber security is not the "business" of the Health Service.

[woolley]

14 minutes ago, Bobbie Bobster said:

No, the UK Government, including the Home and Health Secretaries should have renewed the WIndows XP extended support contract that they nixed in April 2015, thereby increasing the risk that an unpatched vulnerability in many legacy systems and pieces of equipment running XP would lead to an event such as last week's.

 

13 minutes ago, RIchard Britten said:

Cyber security is not the "business" of the Health Service.

Of course it is. Why do they have expensive management in these fields if not? This is not micromanaged by the cabinet!

https://digital.nhs.uk/cyber-security

[Bobbie Bobster]

 

1 minute ago, woolley said:

Of course it is. Why do they have expensive management in these fields if not? This is not micromanaged by the cabinet!

It's funded - or not - by the cabinet.

[RIchard Britten]

1 minute ago, Bobbie Bobster said:

 

It's funded - or not - by the cabinet.

Exactly.  It was May who pulled the funding for legacy OS Support

[woolley]

12 minutes ago, Bobbie Bobster said:

 

It's funded - or not - by the cabinet.

 

11 minutes ago, RIchard Britten said:

Exactly.  It was May who pulled the funding for legacy OS Support

This is just ludicrous. The first May heard about it was probably last week with the rest of us. These things are decided by expensively salaried management and consultants. The very idea that ministers sit around in cabinet talking about minor stuff like this is laughable. The funding is sanctioned by politicians and it is ever increasing. How it is spent is down to the management - even if they'd wanted to continue to support XP.

http://www.businessinsider.my/why-the-uk-government-stopped-paying-for-windows-xp-2017-5/#5fwqr71K6Gy50CAI.97

[Bobbie Bobster]

11 minutes ago, woolley said:

This is just ludicrous. The first May heard about it was probably last week with the rest of us. These things are decided by expensively salaried management and consultants. The very idea that ministers sit around in cabinet talking about minor stuff like this is laughable.

The fact that a significant proportion of the UK Government's IT estate was dependant on XP (for complicated and not-easily solved reasons) and would remain so, even given adequate funding to migrate, is not "minor stuff"!  As evidenced by the events of last week.  Such a vulnerability would be right up there at the top of the IT risk register on the grounds of both high probability and hig impact.

[woolley]

11 minutes ago, Bobbie Bobster said:

The fact that a significant proportion of the UK Government's IT estate was dependant on XP (for complicated and not-easily solved reasons) and would remain so, even given adequate funding to migrate, is not "minor stuff"!  As evidenced by the events of last week.  Such a vulnerability would be right up there at the top of the IT risk register on the grounds of both high probability and hig impact.

I agree, but it is easy to be wise after the event. This is why we have experts in the field employed by government to make these decisions. Perhaps in the light of events "minor" is the wrong word, but it is certainly a delegated matter. Management is there to manage and set priorities. Otherwise they are redundant.

[Bobbie Bobster]

5 minutes ago, woolley said:

but it is certainly a delegated matter.

But it wasn't a delegated matter - the UK Gov decided to pull the plug on funding the XP support.

What are the NHS IT managers going to do then?  Maybe they could defer the backup infrastructure maintenance spend to buy XP support.  Or those servers that are at 97% utilisation.  Or one of the other pieces of key maintenance that are often not funded properly because "it's been fine so far".

[woolley]

5 minutes ago, Bobbie Bobster said:

But it wasn't a delegated matter - the UK Gov decided to pull the plug on funding the XP support.

 

Read the link I posted earlier. It was a management decision not a political decision.

From the link:

James Stewart is the former chief technology officer at the Government Digital Service, which sits within the Cabinet Office, and works with different government departments to help improve public services through tech.

Stewart didn’t participate in the decision to end Windows XP support, but did work closely with the co-ordinating team.

He said that the decision wasn’t made “unilaterally” by one department, but rather members of different government departments who were responsible for technology. This was called the Technology Leaders Network, and it was this group which made the decision in 2015 to stop paying Microsoft for support.

Stewart told Business Insider the group felt continuing to pay for Windows XP support would have been “pulling a rug over the problem.”

 

[woolley]

As you would expect, this is a massive bureaucracy.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/technology-leaders-network/

So you would have us believe that they have all of these expert people running IT, but despite that, Theresa May went in there one morning and said to this multitude of highly paid techies: "Right chaps. We stop paying for XP support in 3 months. I've just been to the bank and cancelled the direct debit. Carry on!" Doesn't seem right does it? Because it isn't.