SOLVED Hackers

[Norton]

There seems to be lots of hacker activity of late WannaCry...
I received an apology letter from my ISP last week Bell Canada informing me that some hacker(s) got into to Bells accounts and stole 19 million email addresses. The letter assured me that their investigation found no indication that financial, password or other sensitive personal information was accessed. Bell has worked closely with government and law enforcement to investigate and analyze the situation. This incident is not connected to the recent global WannaCry malware attacks. On Sunday at 4.00am I received and email from Travis and the so called "Pirate Party.ca" informing me of the same, and provided links to help fight phishing. LOL

I contacted Bell Technical, they were eager to get their hands on the email, I forwarded it to them so they could track it's origin. I read somewere today that the hackers have picked up the pace on those foolish enough to still be running XP.

 

[Wolfie]

the hackers have picked up the pace on those foolish enough to still be running XP.

Norton, I assume you are talking about the British government?.

 

[Norton]

It was a brilliant young British man that found a backdoor to the Malware and slowed it down.
Apparently I think he found that it was operating from an unregistered domain, and immediately registered it.
We (N.America) were fortunate it hadn't reached us to cause any real chaos. I'm sure he will get some recognition for his accomplishment.

 

[Wolfie]

There are a group of hackers called "White Hat" hackers that use their hacking skills for good , it is a shame that those malicious hackers that seek to hurt people don't do the same thing!.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat_(computer_security)

 

[davehc]

There is a sick, down aspect to hacking.
I would suggest the majority of hackers are (probably) young. They do it for fun and mischief.
For the same reason, Linux, whilst allegedly less hacked than Windows, is no fun when it is open source.

 

[Wolfie]

HI Dave,

as far as Linux goes (afaik), it is the servers which get hacked and not the OS per se. If the hackers get into the servers, that is where the problems start!.

 

[Defender01]

Norton, I assume you are talking about the British government?.

And sadly the N H S that are still operating outdated O S because of lack of funding.

 

[Wolfie]

Yeah @Defender01 ,

they can find money for having a cocktail reception which costs tens of thousands though, we don't want the poor politicians missing out on the afternoon "High tea" either do we!.

 

[Regedit32]

And sadly the N H S that are still operating outdated O S because of lack of funding

The NHS whilst probably never able to be funded to the standard the British folk would love, is the least of your concerns in my opinion.

I'd be a lot more worried about the outdated computers being used on the tens of thousands of Nuclear warheads many nations store in their belief deterrence is actually a means to prevention of wars.

 

[Wolfie]

I am actually surprised that the NHS don't run the latest Windows 10 and all of their old hardware in a virtual box, that way they can still run all their old apps for the medical equipment without it being a major problem.

Another thing I would do is update the E-Mail security filter to scan any attachments on their network!.

 

[Wargamer]

The moral of the story: Learn to create a system image and do it on a frequent basis.

I have an SSD to SSD backup configuration and it only takes a few minutes to complete.

In fact, I do daily imaging for emergencies such as this.

One could spend weeks trying to clean up a malware mess.

 

[Norton]

Hackers Cause chaos because it's fun to them, a challenge, and they have nothing better to do with their time.
It's scary when they seemed focused on governments, medical institutions...

 

[Regedit32]

Personally, I believe the NHS hit was pure chance rather than intention by whomever let that ransomware loose.

Nevertheless, I've seen nothing in the news media to indicate whomever this was offered to release the NHS computers from their encryption either - so whoever this was either has no morals, or is too stupid to work out how to stop their own virus.

 

[davehc]

Just leave it at "Too stupid"

 

[Wolfie]

Personally, I believe the NHS hit was pure chance rather than intention by whomever let that ransomware loose.

I think you are right Regedit32 as I remember reading that it was an NHS employee opening an attachment that was the start of their woes!.

 

[Wolfie]

In fact, I do daily imaging for emergencies such as this.

Hi Wargamer,

I only copy my really important stuff to an external drive, if push comes to shove I find it quicker to do a full reset (or fresh install) because of the point you make above about it possibly taking weeks to clean the system!.

 

[Wargamer]

Hi Wargamer,

I only copy my really important stuff to an external drive, if push comes to shove I find it quicker to do a full reset (or fresh install) because of the point you make above about it possibly taking weeks to clean the system!.

Agreed!

The easy part is removing the malware source.

The hard part is cleaning up all the residual damage it left behind.

 

[Norton]

I was stupidity on the NHS, they ignored warnings back in March.
NHS had been warned 12 months ago to upgrade from XL for safety reasons to a current supported OS. They dragged their feet on the issue.
Quote "
"NHS Digital issued a targeted update on a secure portal accessible to NHS staff on April 25, and then via a bulletin to more than 10,000 security and IT professionals on April 27 to alert them to this specific issue.

"These alerts included a patch to protect their systems. This guidance was also reissued on Friday following emergence of this issue."
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...y-security-privacy-files-latest-a7736681.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/12/nhs-hit-major-cyber-attack-hackers-demanding-ransom/

 

[Wolfie]

"NHS Digital issued a targeted update on a secure portal accessible to NHS staff on April 25, and then via a bulletin to more than 10,000 security and IT professionals on April 27 to alert them to this specific issue.

Yes! Norton but did they all read it?. Obviously; the person who opened the infected mail didn't!.

 

[gtspeck]

I have a rule, never open an email unless I know who it is from and I never open links unless it's from a source that I know and the display is consistent.