Off topic security updates and XP

[Dave Widgery]

Hi
Firstly I agree, I would never advocate using XP in a commercial
environment, I only use it because it is convenient to use an old
machine for get_iplayer,

With regard to institutions like the NHS, the problem is probably not
the general administration so much which are probably using much later
operating systems than XP.  Often it is bad design by hardware
company's that design and build medical diagnostic equipment, they do
a great job designing some hardware diagnostic tool, then go "oh we
need to control it with a computer" so they connect it via an
interface board to a pc running the current windows operating system
then write a piece of software and drivers to run their hardware,
unfortunately 10 or 15 years down the line a crucial £10,000 piece of
diagnostic equipment is connected to an unsupported vulnerable pc with
no possibility of an upgrade without it costing ten's of thousands of
pounds.

If these manufacturers had only used a bit of insight and used a basic
controller system for example something like a raspberry pi (other
flavours are available) with a cut down operating system to just run
what is needed for the equipment the whole support and vulnerability
issue wouldn't exist.

My wife's son, who has a small software company in France has done
various projects for manufacturers who produce medical and non medical
equipment who wanted to remove the pc component due to the expense and
un-supportability and successfully replaced the pc with a small
controller system for exactly this reason.

anyway as you say I think that there is probably a better place for
this discussion.

Dave



On 14 May 2017 at 18:39, CJB <chrisjbrady at gmail.com> wrote:
> Risks-Forum Digest Saturday 13 May 2017 Volume 30 : Issue 29
> Date: Fri, 12 May 2017 16:27:31 -0700
> From: Lauren Weinstein
> Subject: Today's Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable --
>
> Here's How To Avoid It (Gizmodo)
>
> NNSquad
>
> http://gizmodo.com/today-s-massive-ransomware-attack-was-mostly-preventabl-1795179984
>
> Here's what happened: Unknown attackers deployed a virus targeting
> Microsoft servers running the file sharing protocol Server Message
> Block (SMB). Only servers that weren't updated after March 14 with the
> MS17-010 patch were affected; this patch resolved an exploit known as
> ExternalBlue, once a closely guarded secret of the National Security
> Agent, which was leaked last month by ShadowBrokers, a hacker group
> that first revealed itself last summer. The ransomware, aptly named
> WannaCry, did not spread because of people clicking on bad links. The
> only way to prevent this attack was to have already installed the
> update.
>
> CJB
>
> On 14/05/2017, Dave Widgery <dave.widgery at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi a bit off topic but in view of the recent malware attack and some
>> of us still using windows XP I thought I would share this tip if
>> anyone was not previously aware.
>>
>> An addition of a registry key that enables a continuation of security
>> updates on XP see pcworld article below.   I did this a year or so ago
>> and regularly receive updates.
>>
>> But if you haven't already done this I would ensure that you have a
>> good backup as you are likely to receive a large number of updates
>> with the potential of causing a few problems depending on your system
>> configuration, I also haven't checked if there is a security update
>> for this particular malware, so I would also recommend a good
>> antivirus.
>>
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2310301/windows-xp-registry-hack-keeps-the-security-updates-rolling.html
>> <div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br />
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